Nathan Fletcher Injured At Pipeline

January 8th, 2009, 4:00 pm · 3 Comments · posted by Jeff Malanca, contributing writer

Air specialist and big-wave charger Nathan Fletcher broke his leg Wednesday while surfing at Pipeline on Oahu’s North Shore.

The San Clemente native is no stranger to the notoriously gnarly left-hand reef break. Fletcher apparently took off on about an eight-foot wave, where he did a cutback, and that’s when things went wrong. He ended up breaking his femur in two places and was rescued by North Shore lifeguards.

Fletcher underwent surgery at a hospital in Hawaii and is likely to be out of the water for the next three months. This means he won’t be competing in the Mavericks Big Wave Contest in Northern California, which has a waiting period through the end of March.

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Steve Wimer says:

January 9, 2009 at 3:38 am

Fletcher is a real charger.

sailbyme says:

January 9, 2009 at 8:35 am

“took off on about an eight-foot wave, where he did a cut back and that’s when things went wrong. He ended up breaking his femur in two places and was rescued by North Shore lifeguards”. Who wrote this an intern? What went wrong? Did the reef break his leg? How do you leave out facts and it gets published? If you’re wondering why newspapers around the country are folding in numbers it’s because of writing like this. You lost a customer.