Whoever had April 4th wins!

I suffer from weird accidents. For as long as I can remember I have almost always been the person to receive the worst treatment while surfing. Especially in comparison to my friends. We can go for a surf and I´ll be the only one to get hurt. I thought that this trip was going to be different. I mean I´m surfing left hand pointbreaks that break over sand instead of rock/reef. Especially here in Pichilemu, where the wave is really fun and super mellow.

I was wrong. Yesterday I finished class at 6 and afterwards I strolled across the street to check on the surf. It was really good. Not in the way it had been the last few days, in the big way, but more the fun, lined up kind of way. There isn´t much time after class to get in the water, maybe an hour at most, so I had to rush. I ran back, got my wettie on and hurried off to the surf. I jumped in the water and found it was a little more crowded than normal, but there are so many waves here that there was still more than enough to share. I got a couple waves and was surfing pretty well. I mean this wave at low tide and head high to a touch overhead has got to be one of the most rippable waves I´ve ever ridden. I started to get a little more ambitious and I went for an air on a close out section. I really launched but sometimes, like this instance in particular, I get up in the air and then I stop thinking about landing and just kinda fall to the water. Only thing was that this time my board decided to stab me in the leg. I´ve had this happen before so I wasn´t really worried but I could start to see that blood was spilling out of my wetsuit, so I caught one more (it was a really good one if it´s any consolation) and went in. I didn´t think it would be much, and was kinda pissed that I ripped my wetsuit (only a little) and dinged my board (the nose is bent a little?). I got my wetsuit off in the dark and it was a bit bigger than I had thought. So I go upstairs to put some clothes on, and check it out a little better in the light. Turns out it is still worse than I thought, I can see the bone. I don´t think this is good so I walk into town to see if they have any medical glue and the person immediately points me in the direcion of the hospital.

I walk over there, no big deal, since my leg doesn´t really hurt, it just seems to be bleeding more than a normal cut. I get in the emergency area and the nurse calmly cleans out my wound and thinks it´s cute to touch my bone. Strangely this tickles. She eventually decided that she is done playing with my leg and puts me up on a bed for the doctor to come and stitch me up.

While laying down, I noticed two things. Chile is way different than Mexico, I mean the hospitals seem really clean and the nurses/doctors really do a good job following a sanitary procedure. I really expected a lot less from Chile. It made me realize that it has got to be a lot better off than most of the third world countries. I was actually unusually comfortable.

The second thing I noticed, is that most of the clientele in the emergency room happens to be overbearing parents of very small children. And the children like to cry. A lot. I normally don´t mind the occasionlay baby cry, but to have three wailing right next to me while I´m brewing over not being able to surf next week was a bit much for me.

Finally the doctor shows up (it was after hours so he had to come from his house) and he is a surprisingly young doctor. I´d be surprised if he was over thirty. Turns out he´s the director of the hospital so he´s probably no slouch. I was really impressed with him. He was extremely polite to all of his nurses and was friendly to me too. He got the stitches in quickly and I was off on my way.

So that leaves me without anything to do for the weekend. I was grumpy last night, but I´m okay right now. I know it will be annoying to be out of the water for so long (and to have a limp) but I´ll be back soon.