Weather
Surfer Takes Near-Deadly Fall Riding Wave At Jersey Shore: Watch
Video captured surfer Brendan Tighe take a "wipeout from hell" while trying to catch monstrous waves off Bay Head on Monday, reports said.
BAY HEAD, NJ — As a powerful storm battered parts of New Jersey on Monday, Brendan Tighe grabbed his surfboard and headed out to sea, hoping to catch one of the 20-foot swells battering the Jersey Shore.
The valiant attempt, however, turned into a near-deadly experience for the 33-year-old Point Pleasant Beach native, he told News 12 New Jersey. And it was all captured in a photo taken by Dave Nilsen and video now seen by hundreds of thousands of people.
"The wave stood up, I opened my eyes, and it had gotten too vertical to put my board down to face the wave so I had no choice but to leap," Tighe told News 12.
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Video and photos show Tighe jumping from his board and plummeting nearly two stories before the estimated 22-foot-wave swallows him whole, reports said.
"My foot yanked up like this and my whole body went sideways. I landed sideways on the flat part of the water — we call it the flats — and then the lip came down, landed on my body," Tighe told News 12.
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A storm barreled into New Jersey and other northeastern states on Monday, flooding roads and downing trees, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands, forcing flight cancellations and school closures, and killing at least four people.
More than 5 inches of rain fell in parts of New Jersey, according to the National Weather Service. Meanwhile, wind gusts reached nearly 70 mph along the parts of the New England shoreline.
Tighe's fall was captured on video by Ryan Simalchik, one of several photographers and videographers who gathered on Bay Head's Strickland Avenue to watch Monday's storm swells, reports said.
In an interview with Surfline, Tighe — who has been surfing for 25 years — said he hadn't surfed in a while when he paddled out to ride Monday's waves.
Though he called it a "wipeout from hell," Tighe only suffered minor injuries, reports said.
"To be perfectly honest, it was a really humbling wipeout," he told Surfline. "I'm good, I'm happy to be alive."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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