Champ ‘injures brain’ on first indoor surf machine
Apr 24 2008 by Rhodri Evans, Western Mail

A TEENAGE surfing champion who has competed all over the world has suffered a serious brain injury after an accident on Wales’ first indoor surfing machine, it was claimed yesterday.

Gwen Spurlock, 16, has undergone an operation on her brain and has not returned to school since the alleged incident at the high-profile launch of Swansea’s £32m LC leisure centre in February. The surfer, who has been described as a “Welsh sensation” capable of “devastating form”, will also have to undergo a CAT scan, used to test for bleeding on the brain.

A legal claim against Bay Leisure, the not-for-profit company that runs the centre, is now apparently being prepared over claims that Gwen’s condition came after she hit her head while riding the centre’s Surf Rider machine.

Her family have reportedly been advised by solicitors not to comment. Speaking to the Western Mail at their home in the upmarket Mayals area of the city, where Gwen is recovering, her mother would only say, “Gwen has been surfing all over the world since she was 10 and this is the first accident she has ever had.”

When asked if the accident occurred on the Surf Rider machine, Mrs Spurlock said: “Yes.”

The teenager, who is the current British Girls’ Under-18 Billabong Junior Surf champion, a competition she also won in the under-18 and under-14 categories in 2005, was drafted in for the launch of the £32m LC centre, which was later officially opened by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

It is understood the Olchfa school pupil, who is sponsored by global surf equipment company Billabong and has featured on the Extreme Sports Channel, allegedly began suffering symptoms hours after she used the machine, which is seen as the jewel in the new centre’s crown and costs between £4.95 and £5.95 for a 45-minute session.

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