B. Penn in UFC fight. Photo: Reproduction/ Facebook UFC
Former UFC lightweight champion (up to 70,3 kg), B.J. Penn recently revealed that he had a serious accident last year while surfing in a wave pool.
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On his official Instagram profile, the Hawaiian reported that he almost died and suffered multiple fractures after being sucked into the pool's engine room and compared what happened to the “Premonition” film series.
“Last year, when I was sucked into the engine room of a wave pool, I thought I was going to die. I just kept thinking 'don't die for your children'. I had been surfing for about an hour and the line started getting longer to reach the wave. I was sitting next to the pool owner, close to the wall where the waves are coming from. The first wave that the wall releases is always a ripple so that everyone is ready for the real wave soon after. The wave returned, and as I was very close to the wall, the wave swallowed me and took me and my board under a huge cement wall. I remember feeling like I was being sucked into a pipe. At that moment I was scared.”
“I ended up being taken to a large, dark room that fills with water to form the next wave for the pool. I felt like I was in the movie 'Saw' or 'The Final Destination'. The room would be filled with water up to the ceiling and I would have to hold my breath. Then the room would throw the water out to form the wave. It was getting really rough in there,” Penn recalled.
The former UFC champion posted photos of himself in hospital and explained how he had to deal with fractures and infections for weeks after the accident.
“Everything I bumped into in the room hurt me and gave me infections. I had a bad infection and some fractures on my face from being thrown from one side to the other on the cement walls and from the dirty water on my face. I needed antibiotics for three weeks because of this. While I was in the engine room I knew that one of my friends outside is a legendary surfer and would come to rescue me, so I stayed calm. Other people would have panicked and perhaps given up, but I stayed strong for my children. Well, long story short, I survived that son of a bitch”, said the Hawaiian.
B.J. Penn He also credited his survival to the years dedicated to his MMA career.
“I may have been the first guy in history to get sucked into the engine room of a turned on wave pool. No matter what happens in your life, the advice I have to give is 'stay calm'. If I hadn't fought so many tough guys in my entire life, I might have panicked, but it was just another day at work,” concluded Penn.
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