A 42-year-old man in the U.K. was surfing with a friend Friday when an encounter with a seal ended in a gruesome injury.
Nathan Phillips, described as a local surfing legend, was surfing on a day of powerful waves in Porthleven, Cornwall, when the incident occurred, leaving his leg snapped clean in two, as reported by DevonLive.
Surfer's leg snapped in two in seal attack https://t.co/Wit3MSTu8q
— Devon Live News (@DevonLiveNews) March 6, 2023
Several media outlets reported that the seal attacked him, which simply wasn’t the case. But Phillips seemed to imply by his explanations that he caught a wave to get away from the seal after being “freaked out” by it.
“I had just been paddling out and something started tugging on my leash,” the expectant father told DevonLive. “It kind of freaked me out because I didn’t know what it was. After I worked out that it was a seal and fended it off, it was just playing I think, but a wave crashed down on me just after [that] at a weird angle and sent my board flying into my shin.”
Phillips clarified the incident further when he told ITV News West Country that he “started freaking out” about the seal, took off on a wave and was “in the barrel and then the next thing I know, I hear a big crack and I was underwater.”
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“I remembered my mate saying he thought my board had snapped because of the sound, but then I realized it had been my shin when I felt my foot hitting the back of my leg,” Phillips told DevonLive. “I just started screaming with pain, and my mate dragged me onto his board and told me to start paddling back to shore.”
After getting to shore, he waited 40 minutes before medical personnel arrived.
“It was so painful, and I had to wait even longer in my mate’s van while I waited for an ambulance after I couldn’t fit in the air ambulance,” Phillips said.
CornwallLive reported that the 6-foot-2 surfer was too tall to fit into the Cornwall Air Ambulance helicopter that was smaller than the normal one that is usually used. A couple of hours passed before he was transferred by land ambulance to Royal Cornwall Hospital in Treliske.
With a baby on the way in five weeks and being a self-employed builder, Phillips was thankful for friends who started a GoFundMe page to help with expenses while he recovers from surgery.
“I’m blown away by how kind my friends are and how beautiful the surf community is down here in Cornwall,” he told CornwallLive.
