Spare a thought for professional surfer Tom Dosland, the poor guy taking an almighty tumble in that video above.

Hawaii is currently seeing some monster waves, apparently due to the El Nino weather phenomenon. For some that might be enough to keep them out of the water, but for those who love the thrill of riding a monster it is like Christmas come early.

Social media is having a field day with the footage, dubbing it “the craziest wipeout ever captured on film”. Here’s Dosland describing what happened on CNN:

Dosland likened the intense force to “being in a car crash”. He said he was actually blinded for a few seconds because of the strong sea spray before falling.

“It looked like a sea monster rising out of the ocean when it came my way,” Dosland said. “But I was going. No matter what. So I flipped around and started paddling to get into it.”

“You can’t really tell from the video, but there was some wind blowing spray up the face as I was about to drop in, which pretty much blinded me for a few seconds. I could only see out of one eye, and only partially.”

He later added: “I was free-falling for a while. It felt like I jumped off a cliff. That’s when my leash stretched out all the way and flipped me over head-first. From there, I hit the face and it was just a brutal beating, like I was in a car crash.”