Reports are filtering in from the North Shore that Dusty Payne was pulled unconscious from the water at Pipeline this morning. After a particularly steep Backdoor take-off went awry, It is understood that Dusty was sucked up and over before heavily contacting the reef.
"He was unconscious when my guys got to him,” said lifeguard Adam Lerner in a release from the WSL on the incident. “But with the help of those first surfers on the scene, they got him breathing again back on shore.
“He took a blow to the head, and he may have broken his jaw, but fortunately he was conscious and somewhat coherent by the time they took him to the hospital."
Kauian shredder Ryder Guest was in the lineup at the time and gave Surfline his account.
“He just fell on a nuts drop and hit his head and face on the reef and never came up.
"Everyone was whistling and I started scratching over to his board. Then Ulu Boi [Jimmy Napeahi], Keoki, Mikey Red and a few others got to him and got his head out of the water," said Guest. "He was unconscious till he got to the beach; then came conscious a couple minutes later and blood was everywhere. It was so gnarly. Lifeguards gave him oxygen and stabilized him for like 10-15 minutes, then the firemen and the ambulance came."
Sadly, Dusty’s accident wasn’t the only one on the North Shore this morning. There are now also reports that a 40-year-old man has died up the beach at Rocky Point.
Further details to come …
