Life is filled with little ironies

Originally hailing from Venice Beach, CA, but now residing in Maui, Hill is no stranger to full-rotation airs. Like most Maui natives, he’s learned to utilize the Valley Isle’s heavy wind to his advantage, regularly launching huge airs into the flats. But this day on Oahu, he wasn’t quite as fortunate. A small air in comparison to what he’s used to throwing, the wipeout cracked Hill’s leg and left him requiring surgery.We caught up with Hill while he was recovering in an Oahu hotel, and, despite the circumstances, he sounded surprisingly confident about his impending return to the water.I’m feeling a little bit better than a week ago, when it first happened. But today, the swelling has come up a lot; I don’t have very much mobility right now in my leg. I was able to leave the hospital, though, so I’m just resting in a hotel on Oahu. But I can’t fly back to Maui yet. I can’t bend my knee yet so I can’t sit on the plane. I’ll probably go back to Maui in about 10 days, so I’ll stay here and do physical therapy, get my staples out, and then head back.Basically, I caught this wave, which looked pretty good and I was pumping down the line, looking for the section. I hit it and did a full-rote, not even that high of one, but I landed weird. When I came down, I kinda landed on the spray from the lip, with all my weight on my front foot. My knee already wasn’t feeling well, so I felt sorta weak in the first place. In the video, it looks like I sink into my leg. Then I fell off my board and I remember being in the whitewater and my heel bending all the way around and hitting me in the back of the head. I came up, felt the pain, and just started screaming for help.It didn’t look like a bad fall, so I could see peoples’ faces and everyone was confused as to what happened. The break is super high up on my femur; nobody could see it, because my boardshorts were covering it. But I knew right away how serious it was. My leg was flopping all over the place.Surgery went really well since it was a clean break. It was really easy for them. They extracted bone marrow from inside my bone and they put a metal rod down the whole quad area of my leg. To give that reinforcement, they put two bolts in by my knee and three by my hip. In doing that, it allows me not to have a cast and to start weight-bearing way earlier. The only thing really holding me back is pain.Wait, what day is it today? [Laughs]. On Monday, I stopped taking as much pain meds, but still a decent amount. Now, we’re just trying to limit it so that during physical therapy, I can really feel out my leg better to know where it hurts, where it doesn’t, and how to avoid some of the pain. When you’re on all the pills, it’s kinda hard to actually feel your leg.The actual bone is not supposed to completely heal back for a year. But I’m guessing I’ll be surfing sooner. Nobody’s really given me a set date, we’re sort of taking it day-by-day. But I would guess like six months. I don’t want to let an injury hold me back. I wanna come back and surf even better.Well, the metal rod isn’t coming out so maybe. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be in there until the day I die. Or unless I get some weird infection or something.I didn’t even realize I had so many people around who support me. Not one person I’m close with hasn’t wished me well. Everyone I know. My sponsors have been amazing. O’Neill has really helped me – Garth Tarlow [team manager] got me the right surgeon so that I can come back stronger. I’ve been so lucky and for that, I feel incredibly grateful.++++++More stories by Dashel Pierson:Want breaking surf news, fresh videos, fullscreen photo galleries and more delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for the Surfline weekly newsletter and 'like' our Facebook page