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Last week we were scheduled to record a podcast with big-wave surfing’s most iconic father-daughter duo, Summa and Dylan Longbottom. Unfortunately, Summa was sick on the day, and I was already pulling up at Dylan’s shaping bay in Taren Point, Sydney, when Dylan messaged me about his daughter’s health.
Despite having to delay the podcast, Dylan was happy to spend some time talking about the recent South Oz slab session, which left him with four broken ribs and a punctured lung. Below is our chat, which makes a strong case that the 49-year-old may be the grittiest person in surfing.
Tracks: So you guys have been on this slab tour this year. It’s been pretty mental to watch. Were you charging the whole way up to the wipe-out in South Oz or was it kind of on and off?
Dylan: No, charging the whole time. So basically, that was our plan again for this year. We do it every year anyway. But my team rider Lucas Chumbo was supposed to be with me as well but he couldn’t make it; he’s never been to Australia. So he’s frothing to come with his shaper living in Australia, and to surf all our slabs, but he had to pull out last minute. They’re having their second child. So he’s pushed it back to next year, which is going to be super exciting, especially after what we did this year.
So I had my other really good friend and team rider, Jerome Sahyoun, from Morocco. He’s a crazy slab chaser too. So it was him, myself and Summa over the last three months. And Jerome’s planted himself here in Cronulla. And we’re just chasing swells. We go to Victoria come back, go to Tasmania to Western Australia. Then did the big tow swell in Teahupo’o, came back to Oz, then went to Indo.
And then our last one, which was South Australia in the desert. And yeah, it was the one wave I hadn’t surfed before. And yeah, it was my first wave and so yeah, I got that mutant one mate.
Can we talk about the wave? It looked like a bloody monster.
Well, yeah. So you know, I got whipped into the swell and the direction looked good. I knew it was a big one, but it kind of doubled-up, then tripled, and quadrupled up. So it was an 18-second period, so it was moving super fast. It comes out of such deep water onto the shallowest, gnarliest reef I’ve ever surfed. And, so what happened, I thought I had my line and then it kept bottoming-out down in front of me. So I kept chasing it, as it was bottoming me out. And then the last one just bottomed out so big and I lost my edge. And I pretty much face-planted at the bottom in the worst spot. And then I got sucked over and pretty much got slammed on the bottom so hard. And the reefs like pinnacles, it’s not flat, and I landed on a pinnacle on my right chest. And I ended up breaking four ribs really bad. My rib pushed in, punctured my lung, and I was out of breath. And yeah, it was torture.
So you knew that you did something, but I saw you in Tim Bonython’s clip when you’re chatting after the wipeout to Tim and you seemed really happy but obviously you didn’t know the severity of it?
Yeah, so that was after a bunch of beers and a heap of painkillers. So I was kind of all right. I was probably eight beers deep just to get through the day. But once all that wore off, that was when it hit me hard. I couldn’t move when I woke up. And I was in the worst pain ever. And yeah, I knew I’d done damage. And I was thinking maybe a fractured rib or cracked sternum because it was up high. Or I ripped my peck off my bone. I thought, oh you know, they’re just gonna say there’s a fracture and you know, just gotta take it easy for two months, but it was a lot worse than that.
It was a 12-hour drive from the desert to Adelaide. And then I was like ‘fuck, I just want to get home’. I was in so much pain, but I wasn’t thinking punctured lung. And you know it was a bit silly and the doctors couldn’t believe I survived the plane ride, (flying with a punctured lung can be fatal) and then I got back there (Sydney) and went to the GP. I just went to book in for X-rays, and they’re like, “No you’ve gotta go to a hospital we can hear air in there.
So yes, straight into Sutherland hospital. They X-rayed me and they said man your ribs are that badly broken. You’re like a car crash victim we’re gonna need to operate on it. I couldn’t believe that I was like ‘fuck’. And then they go your lung collapsed and we’ve got to put chest drains in and drain your chest and your lungs. I was like far out and then they transferred me to a trauma unit at St. George Hospital. So yeah, I ended up spending nine days in hospitals while getting full surgery on my ribs. Yeah, it was heavy.
Did the doctors tell you what could have happened?
I asked, ‘What could of happened?’ And they said because one lung was pretty much collapsed. What happens is you’re relying on one lung and because of the pressure that lung’s working overtime for the other one. And that lung could collapses too because it’s working for the other one. If that one collapses, you die. And I was like, ‘fuck it was really bad’. That’s what you know a lot of us guys do, we just kind of get through the pain, ‘Oh I’m going to be right I’ll just deal with the pain’ and not really taking in the severity of the injury and just feeling pain where it’s a lot worse than you think you know. I was pretty much drowning in my own blood on the inside, and didn’t know the lung had collapsed – yeah pretty lucky to survive.
I saw at the end of Tim’s video, when you’re in hospital, you’re like that’s kind of me done now, like I’m over it. Are you still in that retirement headspace?
Ah no. That was when I first came out of surgery and I was just in so much pain and you know my family were a bit worried, but no, that was just like, I’m done with that kind of wave at the moment.
You know these days I’m spending a lot more time teaching Summa, my daughter and the next generation, and you know doing a lot of tow and rescue. On the big days I’m gonna catch a handful waves max. I kind of help everyone and I’m the last one to go kind of thing. So I’m happy doing that. But I still love it and it hasn’t changed my mindset and I’m still gonna do it because I love it. I’m still gonna get a few here and there. I’m not going to get a heap but you know I’m always pretty selective anyway and if I think it’s a mutant, I would usually kick out but that one just got me off guard because I’ve never surfed the wave, and it all happens so quick you know, it was just one of those things but nuh, I’m gonna be ready to go again.
Tracks Podcast with Dylan and Summa is coming soon.
