Last month, Santa Barbara goofyfoot Parker Coffin was on a strike mission in Barbados when things went awry at the Kelly-Slater-made-famous surf spot known as Soup Bowls. Just a handful of waves into his first session, Coffin pulled into a perfect-looking tube, only to hit an rougue ledge that threw off his balance and sent him headfirst into razor-sharp reef.
“The way I fell sent me straight into the reef onto my face and shredded my left eye and nose,” Coffin explained in his post below. “..Dazed and confused I came up in time to get a loud yell and a big breath before taking the next wave on the head. Lucky for me the crew in the lineup was quick to grab me and help me get to shore.”
He spent the rest of his trip in the hospital getting inspected for internal damage of all sorts and returned to the USA for immediate surgery.
Although having to sit-out on a good many sessions over the past few weeks, Coffin has been doing his best to heal from nearly losing his eye. “Bodies are incredible,” he wrote in an IG post (below) just this week. “I ripped my face/eyelid a part about a month ago and have been doing my best to heal. Here’s a little sequence of what my healing process has looked like. I have full vision and am just waiting for the scar tissue to continue to break down so I can open my eye all the way…what a journey!! Thanks to everybody involved with helping me get back to 100 percent. Still no surfing, but I’ve been working out tons and getting my mind right. Feels good to be close.”
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