BJ Penn just canโt catch a break. And thatโs not even accounting for his decade-long losing streak inside the Octagon. The former UFC Lightweight Champion and Hall of Famer has โ as the kids say โ been going through it for a hot minute; from grappling with substance abuse issues, an ongoing paternity lawsuit, to being knocked out cold by some out-of-shape random in a drunken street brawl. Taking to Instagram yesterday, BJ Penn revealed one of his latest setbacks in life, which involved a near-death experience in a wave pool engine room.
โLast year when I got sucked into a wave pool engine room and thought I was going to dieโฆ I kept thinking, โDonโt die for your kidsโ,โ The Prodigy himself details.
โI was surfing for about an hour and the line started getting longer to catch the wave. I was sitting next to the owner of the wave pool by the โwallโ where the waves come from.โ
โThe first wave it shoots out is a dud to get everyone ready for the next wave. The dud wave came back and because I was so close to the wall, the wave swallowed me and pushed me and my surfboard underneath a huge cement wall.โ
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โI remember feeling like I was getting sucked in a pipe and at that moment I got scared. It ended up pushing me into a big dark cement room that fills up with water to push the next wave for the wave pool. It felt like I was in the movie SAW or Final Destination.โ
โThe room would fill up with water to the top and I would hold my breath and then it would push the water out to make the wave and it was really rough inside there. Everything I bumped up against in the room that hurt me got infected. I got a bad sinus infection and a couple facial fractures from getting knocked around the cement wallsโฆ the dirty water got in my face and infected my whole sinus. I was on antibiotics for three weeks for my face.โ
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โWhile I was in the wave pool engine room, I knew that one of my friends outside from big island is a legendary surfer, and I knew he would come in there to rescue me so I stayed calm. A lot of other people might have panicked and maybe gave up but I just stayed strong for my kids.โ
In typical BJ Penn fashion, he credited fighting โtough cuntsโ his entire life for surviving the wave pool engine room โ among other factors, like his mate sweeping in for the rescue โ chalking it up to โjust another day in the office.โ As you will have noticed, our down-on-his-luck pugilist also had the courtesy to redact any names and identifiers, for the purposes of avoiding a witch hunt (โIโm not the kind of guy that shows up to your house to play and gets hurt and tries to sue, so all love.โ).
โAnyway to make a long story short, I survived that motherfuckerโฆ Maybe I was the first guy in history to get sucked into a wave pool engine room while it is in operation but no matter what happens in life and no matter how scary it is, if I can offer you any advice, I would just say to stay calm.โ
