This is the terrifying moment an Australian man was wiped out by a giant eight meter monster wave and knocked unconscious while surfing in one of the world’s most dangerous surf spots.
Footage shows the moment surfer Mikey Brennan, 38, fell off his surfboard as a wave crashed onto him while he surfed at Shipstern Bluff in Tasmania on Friday, which is notorious for its angry waves.
After being wiped out by the wave, Brennan disappeared into the water for a few seconds, before surfacing.
In a video clip, his body can be seen floating in the water as a man on a jet ski goes towards him to offer help.
An onlooker can be heard saying in the video: ‘You alright? He’s alright’.
Footage shows the moment surfer Mikey Brennan, 38, fell off his surfboard as a wave crashed onto him while he surfed at Shipstern Bluff in Tasmania on Friday
After being wiped out by the wave, Brennan disappeared into the water for a few seconds
Brennan was momentarily knocked unconscious and had to be fished out of the water by someone on a jet ski
While Brennan was knocked unconscious, he was quickly fished out of the water and regained consciousness before being rushed to Royal Hobart Hospital for a check-up.
The man suffered from bruised ribs, but was later discharged.
Brennan appeared on Australian breakfast show Sunrise today to talk about the accident.
‘The wave was probably one of the bigger waves I have ever caught. And just the amount of energy in the swell, the situation was just pretty intense. I went down and got knocked out.’
But the incident won’t stop him from catching big waves. ‘I have been doing it my whole life’, he said.
‘I love the ocean. I guess, I don’t know, I’ve got like maybe nine lives or something.’
Brennan shared the clip of him being knocked out on his Instagram account to his 12,300 followers.
The surfer had previously broken his back surfing on Tasmania’s East Coast after he hit a reef.
Brennan was taken to hospital but only suffered from bruised ribs
But the incident won’t stop him from catching big waves
The incident comes just days after a Florida surfer tragically died after he smashed into a pier in Daytona Beach earlier this month.
Jorge Alvarado, 49, was surfing on the south side of the Sunglow Pier in Daytona Beach when the accident happened.
Alvarado may have struck a sandbar and then became tangled with a piling under the pier, the director of Volusia County Beach Safety Ocean Rescue Tamra Malphurs said.
A witness said they saw Alvarado go head first into the piling before going under.
It took surfers several minutes to free Alvarado which let rescuers perform life-saving measures before he was taken to the hospital and placed on life support.
But Alvarado’s friend, Justin Gore, sadly announced last week that he had died.
He wrote: ‘It is with a heavy heart that Jorge has passed away and has gone home to be with the Lord.’
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
