You know Kelly Slater, right? I mean, you’ve heard of him. He’s kind of a big deal. A legend of surfing, if you will. An 11-time World Surf League Champion; a winner, an icon, a doppelgänger for this guy I know. Kelly Slater. Come on, you know Kelly Slater.

Well, anyway. That’s the Kelly Slater who’s just broken multiple bones in his right foot while competing at the Corona Open J-Bay in South Africa. You might be familiar with J-Bay (Jeffreys Bay) already as it’s the same place where Mick Fanning literally punched a shark in the face.

Slater was free surfing when a forceful whitewash took him off his board, and proceeded to slam the board into his foot at an awkward angle. He reportedly felt the bones pop, which after inspecting the gnarly x-ray comes as pretty unsurprising news to us.

Upon making it to the shore, Slater was visibly in a lot of pain. He crawled a short distance back up the beach, before medical assistance arrived on the scene and began helping him.

You ever folded your entire foot backwards? If you try it sometime, this is what it might look like. I pulled into a barrel this morning and the whitewash bounced the board back into my foot as I hit the closeout, taking all the pressure into the metatarsals. Kinda like smashing my foot with a big hammer as hard as I can. Sorta feels like I’m giving birth out of my foot right now! I’m guessing surgery and 6 week holiday is in order. Not looking forward to 30 hour flight home before surgery though. Ouch! It sucks but so many people deal with such horrible things around this world everyday that a broken foot is pretty minor in the scheme of things. Sometimes a bad thing is a good thing. I’ll make the best of my time off. #ThatsGonnaLeaveAMark #INeedElephantTranquilizers

A post shared by Kelly Slater (@kellyslater) on Jul 17, 2017 at 5:53am PDT