Surfer's Meylopathy

As some of you may have noticed I have been absent from class since spring break. Although this is not particularly relevant to the week’s topic, I wanted to share my story with you and hopefully prevent this from happening to any of you or your loved ones in the future.

My boyfriend, Joe, and I went to Hawaii over spring break for a wedding and decided to stay some extra days to enjoy the sun. The morning after all the wedding festivities were over we went surfing on Waikiki. I had been surfing a few times before, but this was Joe’s first (and unfortunately last) time. Joe suffered an extremely rare and scarcely studied injury called "surfer's myelopathy". There was no "accident" in the sense of a bad fall or crash. He was simply laying on the surfboard stomach-down look up for waves, paddling and standing up on the board. He was a great first time surfer, he caught the first four waves! Somewhere in that flow of movements, he apparently cut off blood circulation by hyper-extending his spine, resulting in a severe spinal cord injury. The paralysis took about 6 hours to fully set it. We had not idea it was as serious as it turned out to be. After surfing, we stopped by the lifeguard station because both of us were pretty badly cut up by the reef, I had a cut on my foot that was almost "stitch-worthy", and Joe had a sea urchin stuck in his foot. We got all that taken care of and we both limped back to the hotel room. We went to a Mexican restaurant to catch lunch and drink margaritas to make our pains go away. The pain in Joe’s back, something he thought was normal for a first time surfer using muscles not normally used, was beginning to concern both of us so we went to the on call hotel doctor. He immediately diagnosed Joe and showed grave concern for his condition, he was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance and was taken to get an MRI. The MRI showed severe swelling of the spinal cord from the mid thoracic (around T6) all the way down to the lower lumbar. Joe’s mobility and sensation in his legs slowly dissipated throughout the day, until he lost all mobility as well as pain and temperature sensation.

We spent almost two weeks in Hawaiian hospitals, getting the minimal care that a spinal cord injury patient needs, until he was transferred to Craig Hospital (great rehabilitation hospital specializing in spinal cord injuries) in Denver where we currently are. Despite the lack of improvement in his condition and the lack of available treatment or research provided by the doctors this last month, we are still hopeful. There is no real prognosis for this type of atraumatic injury, so we are just waiting, and being patient.

I wanted to share this story with you in hopes that you can pass it on to anyone you may know that will be trying surfing out for the very first time. Through this I have learned that the doctor who has seen the most cases of this warns first time surfers to stay in the water for only 30mins and to come out of the water immediately if they experience any lower back pain. We have been told that Joe’s condition would not have been as bad if he had come out of the water when he first experienced the pain in his back. Hopefully, this challenging experience that we have been confronted with will serve as a tool to help prevent future cases.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Hope the rest of the semester goes well for all of you!