Video: Jamie O'Brien's 'Deadliest Wipeout Ever' at Pipeline
Jamie O’Brien was born and raised on the sand at Pipeline.
For guys like him, or the Florence brothers who grew up there, too, Pipeline is their backyard. They know it like the back of their hands. Every nook and cranny in the notorious reef. What swells are just right. When to paddle out, and when to just watch.
Regardless of all that knowledge and first-hand experience, wipeouts still happen. This is Pipeline; it doesn’t discriminate when it decides to swallow a surfer whole.
So, for Jamie O’Brien, who has surfed the wave literally his entire life, to claim that this is his “deadliest wipeout ever” at Pipeline, it’s a big deal. Granted, a large portion of JOB’s livelihood comes from the internet and YouTube and clicks and views, so superlatives like this are algorithmically part of the job. But still…
The clip itself isn’t too gnarly, relatively speaking, when it comes to Pipeline wipeouts. JOB drops in, sees it close out, then tries to straighten out, only to get obliterated. However, in the comments, JOB explained what the camera didn’t see.
“It was a triple double up!” he wrote. “It was worth a try, but ended up slamming me straight to the reef!!! Very violent one I literally popped up 30 feet from the beach.”
After the wave detonated on his head, or at least directly behind him, it sent him straight into the unforgiving reef below. Jamie continued:
“It sucks cause you never know what part of your body you’re gonna hit that’s why I’ve been wearing a helmet recently because I don’t wanna get a head injury and die from drowning! But weirdly mostly hit your back.”
This season, especially, there’s been numerous surfers knocked unconscious from hitting their heads on the reef at Pipeline. And as a result, seemingly more surfers than ever are donning helmets for the first time as a precaution.
Will there be more wipeouts and injuries this season? Probably. Will there be more surfers wearing helmets as a preventative measure? Hopefully.
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