Surfing horror: Man's face impaled

Tom Palastanga in his hospital bed after surgery to remove a piece of surfboard embedded in his face. Photo / Supplied

With a 20cm chunk of surfboard embedded in his face, blood pouring from his wound and the sight in his left eye gone, Tom Palastanga battled his way back to shore.

The 29-year-old geologist was enjoying an after-work surf at Maori Bay, near Muriwai, in good conditions and a 1m swell when disaster struck.

He had just caught his first ride and was on his way out for more when he duck-dived a wave and did not see a surfer who was riding a wave towards him.

"Usually you can get out of the way, but it was like a split second ..." he said.

"I just remember seeing him, his board and then the next few seconds just tumbling under the water with the boards and the leashes, thinking 'it's not a good situation'."

Mr Palastanga, who moved to Auckland from Bridgend, south Wales, about two years ago, surfaced a few moments later.

After getting his bearings and not feeling too much pain, he thought he might have escaped the encounter with a broken nose or grazes to his face.

"I felt my face because I thought my nose might be a bit out of shape and then I felt this thing sticking out of my face - it was a good 20cm out of my face.

"I realised then it was a bit of his board that had snapped off and was sticking out of my cheek ... it was pretty surreal, it was a horrible situation."

A facial specialist later told him a chunk of the nose of the other man's surfboard had embedded itself at least 7cm into his face.

The board smashed through his left cheek, fractured the floor of his left eye-socket and went through the sinus and Nasal cavity into the pharynx at the back of the throat.

Blinded in his left eye, he could feel the piece of board in the roof of his mouth and blood trickling from the wound.

Despite not being able to breathe properly, he was able to talk, and with the help of the other surfer, paddled back to shore.

"The guy then ran off to call an ambulance and got his mate to stay with me," said Mr Palastanga. "We made our way up to the top carpark and shocked a few people on the way - it was a pretty horrific sight so I got someone to take a photo.

"I was worried I was going to pass out, but I think it was the adrenalin that kept me going ... I was asking people how serious it looked and they all went 'yeah, it's pretty bad'."

An ambulance took him to Auckland Hospital, where oral and maxillofacial surgeon Lance West was one of two specialists who spent 4 hours removing the piece of surfboard and rebuilding his eye socket.

Mr West said the procedure was difficult because the broken bits of fibreglass and foam from the board did not show up on x-rays.

The team could see the material in Mr Palastanga's head only because it was covered with a thin layer of blood that could be seen in the scan.

He said Mr Palastanga was "a very lucky fellow" who had narrowly avoided being permanently blinded in one eye, severe nerve damage in his cheek and losing several teeth or worse.

"He was lucky it had missed everything that was going to bleed and most of the nerves. A bit higher and he might have lost his eye but he has completely normal function there, lower and he would have damaged his teeth a lot," said Mr West.

He would probably make a full recovery, apart from occasional numbness in his left cheek and permanent scar left by the 14 stitches inserted under his left eye.

Mr Palastanga, who had his left eye-socket reconstructed with a titanium plate and screws and his nose put back in place after the incident three weeks ago, returned to his job in Albany last week.

A surfer of 15 years, he says it has not put him off, "but it made me realise how bad it could have been and just how lucky I was."

LUCKY ESCAPE

* Surfboard embedded 7cm into face
* Fractured eye socket
* Temporary blindness
* 4-hour operation to remove board