DOUGAL PATERSON INVESTIGATES.
BRRURDO is the jet fuel of big-wave riders. There’s this ‘understanding’: that those willing to risk it all will be rewarded with the biggest waves.
At the time of her accident, Mercedes Maidana was one of the best big-wave surfers in the world.
Then, in 2014, while competing in a contest held in 30ft waves off the coast of Oregon, she was hit in the face by her 10ft surfboard. “It hit me underwater like a table, right into my forehead. I felt a quick in-and-out, black stars, pulled my inflatable vest…”
Bleeding profusely, Maidana was rescued and taken back to shore, where a doctor glued the cut above her eye and told her she had “a mild concussion, nothing to worry about”.
Back in Hawaii, despite multiple symptoms, she continued to ride big waves for the next two seasons. As the months passed, her life was engulfed by a fog of fatigue, mental confusion, paranoia, anxiety and depression.
“My husband was asking for me to stop surfing in big waves, because I kept having serious accidents. He was
