Surfer Survives Big Wave Accident
By Ted Reckas on January 26, 2011 8:29 AM | Comments (0)
A huge wave at Maverick’s this Fall. Photo: David Pu’u.
San Clemente surfer Jacob Trette is swiftly recovering following a three-day stay in intensive care after a near death experience while surfing at Mavericks.
“We may have witnessed a miracle and there’s a few folks responsible for that,” Frank Quirarte, a water and safety logistics coordinator for the Mavericks Surf Contest said in an email to friends Monday, “As of tonight (Trette) is totally responsive. Moving arms, legs and has almost 100% brain functions. He doesn’t remember a thing about what happened.”
Mavericks is a big wave surf spot in Half Moon Bay regarded as one of the most dangerous in the world because of the huge, unusually powerful waves, rocky bottom and cold water. It is also one of the most revered by big wave surfers.
Photographer Don Montgomery, who took the first photos at Mavericks published by Surfer Magazine in 1992, captured Trette getting caught in the lip of a 25-foot wave last Saturday, Jan. 22. “The last time I saw him was when he came up after the first two-wave hold down. Then I saw him go down and didn’t see him again. There’s no doubt in my mind that he had another two-wave hold down. That took him all the way through the rocks and into the forebay.”
A two-wave hold down is a rare occurrence in which a surfer is held under by a wave for so long that he cannot get to the surface before the next wave has broken. A handful of the best big wave surfers have narrowly survived a single two-wave hold down.
A kayaker spotted Trette floating far shoreward and got the attention of photographer Russel Ord, shooting from a personal water craft, who had already come to the aid of another surfer caught by the wave.
“I’m a fireman and I’ve seen a few dead bodies. He looked dead to me,” Ord told Australia’s Herald Sun. “This is five or six minutes (since the first rogue wave), maybe longer. He looked beyond dead.”
Ord reportedly detected Trette’s pulse when they reached the beach. Paramedics arrived and Trette was flown via helicopter to Stanford Medical Center where he was reportedly put in an induced coma. Stanford Medical staff confirmed he was still in the intensive care unit as of Jan 24.
The 12 to 15 foot waves on Saturday had been small for Mavericks, leading surfers to wait for waves closer to shore than is usual. When a 25-foot set approached, breaking farther out, they were trapped inside the area where the waves break and Trette, among others, did not escape.
