Lucky to be alive...kitemare gone really bad.

[Coach]

and to top this shit all off, the freakin fire ants got me as i was crawling in Bob's car. Nasty bites on my foot. What a day.

I personally found that sort of humorous. Here is a guy that just got worked, arm lacerated, etc. He is dealing with the pain pretty well.
Then... some little ants bite him.. YOWEEEE.... I hear.
That's when I knew you were gonna make it.

[toby wilson]

Yep, that was right after the accident, I recovered Bill's board, then went downwind to see how badly he was hurt because I could get back upwind with my kite much faster than anyone on land to let someone know if he was critically injured to call an ambulance. Thank god that was not the case.

Bill, I don't think that there is ANY rider in this community that could have handled the situation any better than you did yesterday (including Billy Parker). You ARE a kook though. Just kidding! Your experience paid off, you stayed calm, tried multiple times to release yourself from the kite and luckily were not too close to shore when it happened so you had a few seconds to think although you were being drug under so I am sure that thinking was out the window and your instinct just kicked in.

ANYONE who wants to put this on something that Bill did or did not do is just foolish and pulling the blinders over their eyes. ***t happens out there, you cannot predict when, where, or how it will happen. I have had my share of kitemares over the past 3 years, I have been lucky that they were not as bad as Bill's, Tom's, Bayflite's Josh's or Christopher's. Gear gets old and you don't notice, heck sometimes BRAND NEW equipment fails.

Props to Bill for doing what he could yesterday in the little bit of time that he had to make descisions, in my opinion he is a great example of what our area riders are all about.

Oh lord Josh's and bayflites ... those were two real bad ones.

[Coach]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Toby. And thanks for bustin on me about the fire ants, Scott. Funny stuff. You know I am hurtin, bored and pissed off when I am posting back and forth with you knuckleheads on the kite forum! Thanks for everything guys.

[Chad085]

here's a perfect example of new gear failing: my pretty much brand new rev on a downwinder yesterday, the center line between the CL and the actual lines themselves is like a 2 part grey rope. Those familiar with SS know what i'm talking about. one side gets cleated into a depower chock. Well, the OPPOSITE side of this line that does NOT even go through the cleat to get chafed, decided to snap on me, leaving me with an 11m 2 line trainer kite. I felt something odd, like it was stretching, and looked down at my bar to see the line unraveling right in front of me. WTF??? It defintely was NOT chafed or damaged prior to launch, i always check that stuff. I started hauling ass towards the beach as soon as i saw it and got about 1 kite length away when it snapped. The best part was when the rev's safety system really shined. There is an auxiallary line that runs through the bar up to a front line ABOVE what broke, like a 5th line setup similar to ocean rodeo, ozone, etc. So i let go of the bar thinking the kite will flag, and it did, and the safety line snapped. WTF??? bye bye rev!!!! special props to Trip for sitting on it while flying his kite until i made the swim in, although at that point i was so pissed i didn't even care if that thing rag dolled down the beach and got f@#$ed up. So just to solidify what everyone else has said, sh#t can and will happen, just take every precaution possible to minimize the risk. Hope your recovery goes well dude, sorry to hear it. get well soon