---

‘I thought I was blind’

A veteran surfer of 30 years who almost lost an eye says equipping your boards with protective gear could prevent life-changing injuries

Michael Ancheta feared for a moment that he had lost his sight after falling over backward and hitting his left eye on his surfboard while trying to avoid kids on body boards at Publics off the old Queen's Surf in Waikiki.

After smashing into his board, he hopped back on it and, with his eye bleeding, he began to paddle in on that Sept. 17 day, he said. His buddies saw his face bloodied and went to help the 47-year-old to shore.

"I'm blessed that I didn't lose an eye," he said. "I thought I was blind. All I saw was white because of the hit. I was all bloody."

His first major hit in 30 years of surfing taught him a lesson, he said. All five of his boards now are outfitted with rubber protection on the tips.

"I tried to grab the rails on my board and it slipped out of my hands," said Ancheta, of Kaimuki. "As I fell backward into the wave, the wave apparently pushed me forward, right into my own surfboard.

"As I was rolling around under water, I felt a big collision with my left eye."

His eye was shut with bleeding when he arrived at the emergency room at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children, the nearest hospital, he said.

The ER called Dr. Malcolm Ing, professor and chairman of ophthalmology at the John A. Burns School of Medicine and chief of ophthalmology at Kapiolani Hospital.

Ing had just finished two hours of surfing at Kewalo Basin when his beeper went off. "It's irony," he said. "I was still dripping wet from salt water coming off of me."

Ing said he spent two or three hours with Ancheta, preparing for surgery and repairing his injury. The sharply pointed nose of the surfboard had speared the surfer's eye about an inch below his eyeball, going through the eyelid, Ing said.

"It penetrated through into the orbit, caused fraction of the orbit and bleeding of the eye. It missed the eyeball by 1 inch, luckily.

"He told me right after the injury he couldn't see anything," Ing said. "He is recovering very well as far as the extent of his injury. It is very fortuitous."

Ing recalled another case, a Big Island youth, who lost his eye from such an injury. "Among surf injuries, this is the one you hear about from ophthalmologists. It's fairly common."

Ancheta returned to surfing Oct. 29 in "small little waves on the south shore ... fun waves. It felt so good to get back into the water again." He said he felt "a lot more comfortable" because of his protective gear.

He's equipped his boards with inexpensive rubber nose guards. Another type, called Diamond Tips, fit on top of the surfboard nose, he said.

The nose guards help to prevent injuries like his, he said. "If I take another hit like that, it probably would be just a lump, where I don't have to get stitched or maybe lose an eye."

Ancheta said it's "like an ego thing" not to have the protective devices, thinking, "'I can surf good; it won't happen to me.' Well, it happened to me 30 years later."

He said he doesn't want to take a chance again of being struck by a sharp pointed board or cut by his board's fins, which "can basically be like a knife."

So besides adding rubber nose guards to his boards, he's covering his fiberglass skegs with Pro Tech Performance rubber-coated fins with soft leading and trailing edges. He said SURFCO Hawaii has been having him try different fins to see which he likes.

They prevent "the kinds of slices a lot of surfers get in the legs and thighs," Ancheta described. "They can prevent you from getting a very serious injury where it could be a life-and-death kind of thing."

He said he knew about the protective fins, "but I totally put them out of my mind. The same thing with nose guards. I figured I'm not gonna get hurt."

He said his eye isn't back to normal yet. "I think in due time it might get back to 100 percent, but it's still a little dilated. It's where I can see, but one eye is a little brighter; it won't close as much."

He has tried on brighter days or midday, when the sun is brighter, using goggles that don't shatter, he said.

He's making sure his 27-year-old son, Micah, has surfboard protections. And when his 2-year-old daughter Mikela is old enough, he said he'll teach her how to surf safely.

Ing said all his surfboards have protective nose cones, which are inexpensive and easy to apply. Ophthalmologists agree that the soft nose tip "doesn't do anything to the function of the board," he said.

"I'm often in a break and I see kids with sharp pointed boards, and short, too. When they do whipping turns, if they lose their balance and fall on the tip," they can be severely injured, he said.

He also takes an additional step as a surfer, using specially made unshatterable surf sunglasses made of polycarbonate to limit exposure of his eyes to sunlight.

They have ultraviolet filtering capability to prevent fleshy growths on the eye, known as pterygium, and cataracts linked to sun damage, which he sees often among surfers, he said.

He uses an anti-fog solution on his sunglasses so water falls off and they don't detract from surfing, he said, recommending protective eye wear for other surfers, as well as anyone else exposed to sunlight.