An open Drink Moon Party to collect money and help Cyril, his wife and their 2 kids.
Cyril had last week dramatical Kitesurf accident at Koh Phangan, Thailand.
Few days ago he was hospitalized after getting into coma state.
Cyril has no medical insurance.
His wife does not have any income either support.
She has to take him out of hospital as she can't pay medical expense.
Operating cost is already up to 120 000US$ and his wife is selling everything they got to pay hospital bill.
Please come and have drink.
All profits will be given to Cyril and family.
The event will take place on Tuesday 6pm at the Surf house in Baan tai.
The full story:
Today my friend Ceril had a very serious kite accident in a storm and we could witness what happened from the very first moment when he ran over the street to the beach with his kite to go kitesurfing, until the ambulance drove him to the hospital.
He is an experienced Kitesurfer and likes to take risk. Few months ago, I had to save him with a surfboard because a storm was coming and he was out on the sea with his kite and couldn’t launch it. We made it that time 2 minutes before the storm came…. coming close enough to the beach where we had flat water… this time the storm just brought strong rain and we were lucky…
Today the storm brought strong wind up to 40-50 knots and it was too late to rescue Ceril…
We, my girlfriend and me were on the way to Wok Tum beach to give kitesurflessons. It is a beautiful beach on the west side on the island Koh Phangan with stunning sunsets and a big sandbank around 600x300 meters with flat water…the perfect kitespot.
When we were almost at the Freeway bar where the kitelessons should start I could see Ceril for 1 second crossing the street and running with his 12 meter north kite to the beach. We arrived at the beach and saw that the horizon was a bit black and it seemed a big storm is coming.
We could smell the humidity in the air which indicates a big rain is approaching. Since our kitelessons were about to start in few minutes and a storm seemed to be coming, we decided not to go kiting though we planned before to practice looping the kite in flat water.
It was about 12-14 knots and Ceril was kiting for a few minutes. The wind was getting stronger and stronger and we could see a dark wall coming at us which was stretched on the whole horizon. I believe Ceril knew the storm is coming and went out to take the risk…
When you see a storm coming you never know how strong it will be….there might be strong wind for a minute and then the wind drops…or it gets stronger..or it starts to rain and no wind therefore we continue kitesurfing oftentimes though the conditions are dangerous...we are high on adrenaline and underestimate the risk…
This time... the wind was getting stronger and stronger and Ceril was completely overpowered.
One kitesurfer on the water and the storm is there….It was blowing around 30 knots and he was still out there fighting with the wind and keeping his kite at the edge of the wind window but to high above the water. Slowly, he was being pulled closer and closer to the sandbar which is around 300 meter long until the street.
When he was on the sandbar he still didn’t use the safety system and his kite was flying on the edge of the wind window but still 3-4 meter high. The wind was around 30-40 knots and very gusty. Why on earth he didn’t realese…He was picked up in the air and flew around 50 meter through the air.
I spoke a quick prayer to save him and we started to run to him He landed on the sand was picked up again to around 10-20 meter high and completely out of control. At some point he crashed on the sand and his body was lying without motion on the sand…but the kite was still powered up in the air! He was just about 30 meters away from the street where the trees are and the electricity cables.
I was running like crazy to him to save him from being picked up by the wind again.
I reached him grabbed his kite and try to put it on the ground but the wind was too strong so the kite didn’t stay on the ground. So I took the kite and went to Ceril to check on him. He was lying there unconscious, half naked with ripped clothes and with big injuries. Peaces of flesh were ripped out of his body…both arms were twisted and seemed broken. His breath was very hard and it seemed he couldn’t breath properly. I checked his head for injuries but it looked ok more or less.
2 people arrived and I told one of them to put the kite to the ground and hold it down. A moment later I disconnected Ceril from the kite and we released the air of the kite because it might hurt other people. One person called the ambulance immediately.
Now Ceril was not connected to the kite and the ambulance on its way. However, he was not breathing properly so we had to cut his harness from the body because it slided up to his lungs and there was so much tension on it that it was impossible to remove. I knew we cannot move him because he might have injuries on his spine so we ripped of his clothes so he could breath better. Suddenly, we see that the tide is coming in very fast. What to do now??? We know we shouldn’t move him but if we don’t he will drown….Therefore, we had to take the risk to put him on the kite and hold his head up so he wont swallow water.
The wind was getting stronger and the tide was rising and we had to move him to the beach. He was shouting in pain though he was not conscious and not able to move…it was crazy. We put him on the beach and the electricity cables next to us were catching fire because branches of trees were falling on them. Nothing more we could do now despite remaining as calm as possible and not to shout - to put more stress in the atmosphere.
The ambulance finally arrived after 15 minutes and took him to the hospital. We ran over to his house which was next door and informed his wife about the accident..his 3 kids were also there so again we had to play it down that he is ok more or less.. not to inflict panic. He is in coma now..flying to the hospital in BKK and then maybe to France…
Well, what I learned from this experience is to release the kite in dangerous conditions and to be more mindful when kiting because it is an easy sport to learn where one gets quickly over confident which can result in accidents. I wish Ceril will recover fast and learn from this accident and that his family stays grounded and assists him to go through the recovery period.
Greetings, Peter
For Donations online:
Here is the link for helping Cyril and his family for the ones who got Paypal account. Please donate to: [email protected]
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