Surf’s up; grab a helmet
Dangerously close call in Oahu sends ripples through community
PUPUKEA, Hawaii — The celebratory mood at the Pipeline surf competition on Oahu’s North Shore shifted quickly.
Shortly after the conclusion of the 2019 Billabong Pipe Masters, Hayden Rodgers, the under-14 national surf champion of San Clemente, California, took off on a 10-foot wave. Then he disappeared.
Hundreds of spectators watched as safety workers gunned their Jet Skis toward the impact zone, where the distance between the water’s surface and the jagged, lava-rock reef below can be as little as several feet.
Hayden’s motionless body bobbed up and down in the sloshing foam. He had collided headfirst with the reef below. He was not breathing and had no pulse. After two forceful compressions to his chest, he coughed up a torrent of sand and sea. He was moments away from a fate far worse.
Hayden, now 15, has made a full recovery in the year since and has returned to surfing on the
North Shore of Oahu. But the dangerously close call — witnessed by the sport’s biggest names — sent a ripple through the local community.
Today, many at Pipeline — a surfing mecca in part because it is so perilous — are wearing helmets when they drop in, a somewhat grudging acknowledgment that the sport can be as dangerous as it is cool.
“The ocean can be risky,” said Brian Keaulana, one of the retired lifeguards who led the charge in Hayden’s rescue. “But it’s all about having the proper knowledge and skill level and the right equipment to reduce all those risks.”
Wearing helmets pushes against the cultural tide at Pipeline, where surfers have always aimed to display how skilled and stylish they are, not necessarily how safe.
The community celebrates bravado and prowess so much that it has a pejorative term — kook — for those who are oblivious, overly cautious or unskilled. Nobody wants to look like a child out for a bike ride with their mom and dad.
“Obviously, you look cooler if you don’t have a
helmet on,” said pro surfer Kalani Chapman, 38, of Hawaii. “But I think people are putting that aside nowadays, which is great.”
Hayden’s accident terrified everyone who saw it, but the up-and-comers who regularly surf with Hayden, including his brother Nolan, appeared most shaken. The “groms” — a term short for “grommets,” which refer to passionate young surfers — stood by restlessly, their faces ghost-white as they entertained some ambivalent about it benefits of helmets. While because, you know, I surfed surfing over the same slab a lot of Pipeline growing up, of shallow reef at Pipetoo, and never used one,” line on Feb. 14, Mikey he said. O’Shaughnessy, known as
Like many surfers, he “Redd,” plunged headquestioned the efficacy of first into the hard surface the helmets. Could they below. Even with a scoop up water during helmet strapped in place, a wipeout, potentially O’Shaughnessy, 29, was causing whiplash? Could knocked unconscious and a helmet compromise a spent several waves undersurfer’s overall sense of water before lifeguards and balance? other surfers saved him.
There’s also potential for His helmet cracked on a false sense of security that both sides at the temples, could lead some surfers to but he had no lasting injutake risks beyond their skill ries. level. Wearing a helmet Pipeline, Chapman said, “gives you more confi“can show you the most dence,” Hayden says, “but beautiful experience of you still have to make sure your life, or it can take your life.”thatyou’renotgoingonbad waves.” Maybe not surprisingly,
But increasingly, it’s wearing a helmet at Pipenot just the groms who line is already shifting from are taking precautions. a pragmatic choice to an Elite adult surfers are too. opportunity to showcase Among them is Chapman, style. Jake Maki, 16, used who hit his head on the reef to be one of the few young in 2017 and had no pulse for surfers at Pipeline with a five minutes. The Pipeline signature white helmet. expert now wears a helmet Now, he estimates, there at the break. are five or six.
Owen Wright, 31, of So Maki is on the hunt Australia, sustained a for a new one, drawing near-fatal brain injury inspiration from a veteran while surfing Pipeline surfer’s helmet that has without a helmet in 2015. been customized with He won a prominent pro orange and yellow flames. tour event in 2019 while “I just need to find a wearing a white helmet, way to get more creative,” which he called a new he said, “because I like to precautionary measure. stand out a little, so people
The Pipeline crowd is know I’m there and know already seeing the safety who I am.”
version of the same terrible thought: That could have been me.
Luke Tema, then 13, didn’t witness the accident, but hearing about it prompted a conversation with fellow groms Nalu Deodato and Rivan Rock Rosskopf. They all knew Hayden well, and all frequented the same iconic surf break.
Luke bought a helmet that night.
His father, Eric, wondered if it was necessary. “I was somewhat