Tom came down, and then called the lifeguards. All of them got me out of the shoreline, then up the rock hill to the road. The lifeguards did a wonderful job applying a temporary splint, then recommended I go to PB Urgent Care for quicker assessment. Took off my wetsuit before going; swelling would have made it way more difficult down the road.

As the adrenaline wore off the pain started to kick in. I ended up in a fetal position on the ground at PB Urgent Care as I signed my life away and tried getting my health insurance card via wife and email. Going in for X-rays and initial diagnosis, I was stoked to see that the art deco motif was oriented towards dolphins and whales. For some reason that was comforting; like I knew the people there appreciated the ocean like I do.

The physician on hand was reassuring and cool. I could see in his eyes though that this was a pretty bad break. He wanted an ortho to figure out the next step. Gave me a shot of Demerol or Morphine which was very nice. So after much calling, he contacted Dr. David Chau.

It turned out that Dr. Chau had extensive sports injury experience. He actually is the head team physician for the San Diego Chargers. Lots of signed memorabilia and photos of athletes in his office, including Junior Seau, Peyton Manning, Tony Hawk, and Travis Pastrana. Pretty cool!

First thing he did was to take more x-rays so that he could get a better lay of the land. When he walked in to tell me the results, I could tell it was bad. He started by saying this is a bad break, and on a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the most severe type of injury, this is a 9.0 to 9.5. Of course he recommended surgery.

The great thing was that they were available that afternoon! Sooner the better so I could start recovery. Unusually and fortunately, I had not eaten or drunk anything that morning, so I was ready.

Obtw, sometime during that morning I vaguely remember hallucinating a bit. That was too weird. Must've been the pain and/or the painkiller.

In no time flat I was in the operating room getting prepped. Another neat thing was that the anesthesiologist was a surfer. For some reason we started talking about his recent trip to Tavarua. Another reassuring sign.

The IV quickly did its job because the next thing I remembered was groggily waking up in recovery. Injury at 8:00, operation at 1:00, wakeup at 4:30. Amazingly quick!

The final result was a titanium plate and nine screws. Dr. suggested that at my age, if it doesn't bother me, then I should just leave it in.