Surfer Overcomes Sting of Pain to Ride Waves : A Bright Goal Despite Injury

It was a warm summer day in 1973, and Brian Styer was wading westward in shallow Pacific waters, bound for another session of surfing north of Scripps Pier in La Jolla.

Suddenly, he saw a shadow moving toward him beneath the waves. It was a stingray--with a wingspan later estimated at 17 feet. And with a lightning-quick flip of the tail, the venomous sea creature fired its sharp barb through the surfer’s left kneecap and out the back of his leg.

For 10 days, Styer, then 18, lay partially paralyzed, wondering if he would ever walk again. He did, after doctors removed a portion of the barb, declared him fit and released him from the hospital.

But a sliver of the stingray’s weaponry escaped detection by X-rays and remained lodged in Styer’s knee for more than a year, causing a fierce infection that gradually invaded the surfer’s entire leg, eroding muscle and bone surrounding the knee joint. He nearly lost the limb.

Twelve years and 14 operations later, Styer is back on his board--dancing across the tops of waves with the help of a custom-made alloy brace that supports and strengthens his virtually useless knee.

And this week, after countless hours of practice, Styer realized his lifelong dream and qualified for a professional surfing contest--the world famous Stubbies Pro International Surfing Tournament in Oceanside. His goal: To catch the eye of a sponsor and become the first disabled competitor on the pro surfing circuit.

“I’m very nervous, because I’ve got a lot riding on this,” Styer said. “I feel like I’m on a plateau with guys I’ve idolized for years. I’m just hoping I can go on from here, for myself, but also to show people they don’t have to accept their disabilities. They can overcome them.”

Joining the pro tour will be no small accomplishment. For one thing, the condition of Styer’s knee and the pain it causes him restrict his maneuvers and limit the length of time he can remain in the water. In addition, surfing sponsors are few, and many may be reluctant to bet their bucks on a competitor who is 29--considered over the hill in the grueling water sport--and whose physical condition isn’t 100%.

“Brian’s a darn talented amateur surfer, but this is a sport that doesn’t have a lot of money floating around, a sport where the biggest contests have only got $30,000 in prize money to work with,” said Jim Watson, a spokesman for the Stubbies tournament who reviewed Styer’s surfing skill and decided he was qualified to compete in the contest.

“For that reason, a sponsor probably wouldn’t go with someone like Brian, who’s just not a top-rated professional,” Watson said.

There is another problem. The massive doses of drugs used years ago to battle the infection creeping through Styer’s body so weakened his immunity that the surfer has a 60% chance of contracting bacterial cancer in the leg. He is also highly susceptible to new infections, which flare up and require hospital care once every two months. A serious infection could resist treatment and force doctors to amputate.

“Each time I surf, I surf as if it’s the last time I’ll ever be in the water,” Styer said. “I realize I could lose my leg any day. Because of that, and because surfing is the only sport my knee allows me to do, I honestly live to surf.”

Styer, who walks with a limp, admits his condition and age--if not his talent--make his chances of achieving even a modicum of surfing stardom slim at best. But he is a man used to overcoming long odds.

His injury, for example, and the series of operations performed to repair muscle damage and reconstruct the knee, are enough to keep many people off their feet--let alone off a narrow, fiberglass board.

Scientists at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, who Styer consulted years after he was stung by the stingray, estimated the animal’s wingspan at 17 feet, judging by the length of its bone-like barb. By all indications, Styer’s encounter with such a large stingray was highly unusual, as was the method in which he was attacked.

While stingrays are common off the coast of San Diego County, they are usually much smaller. And normally they bury themselves in the sand and are known to sting only if disturbed by an errant foot.

But Styer wandered near the ray during breeding season, and Scripps scientists told him the animal likely attacked because it felt the surfer posed a threat to its young.

The damage inflicted by the festering wound caused another obstacle to Styer’s dreams of surfing prowess--pain. For almost 10 years, the surfer relied on heavy doses of Percodan, Demerol and other potent drugs to help him live with the pain, which is constant and is aggravated by walking, climbing stairs and other movements.

Finally, feeling “like a vegetable” and convinced the narcotics “would kill me,” Styer attended a workshop on living with pain and successfully weaned himself from the drugs. He now conducts similar pain courses at area hospitals.

These days, he relies on a wide array of measures to minimize the pain, including icing the knee, biofeedback, ultrasound and physical therapy. And while he sleeps each night, he wears a neurostimulator that essentially blocks the electrical impulses that inform the brain of the pain in his knee.

The injury still limits him considerably. Although employed by his family’s landscaping business, Styer can only do light chores for no more than 5 hours a day. The cold ocean currents throb against his knee muscles and limit each surfing session to less than two hours in summer, one hour in winter. Also, he must wear a specially padded wet suit to help combat the pain.

He has no lateral movement in the knee, and after any moderate activity, he must ice it for 45 minutes. Long sessions of stretching and bending exercises are also a must.

The brace, which Styer discovered through Veterans Administration Hospital officials six months ago, has helped his surfing considerably. A lightweight gizmo made of a titanium-magnesium alloy, the brace is made by a Tustin firm that is sponsoring Styer in the Stubbies contest.

Also popular among skiers, the brace flexes vertically and fits over Styer’s wet suit. A piece of plastic protects his knee cap, where a bandage covers an open wound that has refused to heal since the stingray attack.

Even if he falls short of his goals in the Stubbies contest, Styer said, just to surf at a level high enough to compete “with guys with two good legs is great.”

“And even if I totally bomb, I’ll keep shooting for a chance at pro surfing, both for me and to show guys out there who have a disability that they’re not washed up,” Styer said.