Kelly Slater is one of the best surfers in the world. At a young age, Slater began surfing and soon became highlighted as a talented surfer. Naturally, Slater also became famous at a very young age, and people would recognize him with just a glimpse. Slater witnessed a gruesome accident during his teen years, where people were more interested in seeing Slater than the injured ones.

When he started participating in age division championships, Kelly Slater was just ten-year-old. After winning many titles on the Atlantic coast, he participated in the age division championship in the United States. As Slater grew up, he started professional surfing.

Slater described the gruesome accident that he witnessed at 19

Kelly began professional surfing during his teenage years. He started to become famous then. In an interview, Slater recalled the accident he witnessed when he was 19. He drove to Harrington to pick up his friend and surfer Ross Williams. Slater took the inland route to pick William up from Newport. On his way, he stopped at a red signal.

Two people on the sidewalk ran across the street as soon as the signal turned green. Unexpectedly, a car hit them, coming from the other side. Slater witnessed the accident closely and felt devastated. Recently, he described the incident in an interview with The Grin Reapers. He explained:

“They just went flying through there. To me, it looked like somebody had picked up two dolls and just thrown them through the air like they just went flying, like the guy just went head over heels, and the woman went side over the side, and they landed on the sidewalk, and the car next to me flipped around.”

After the devastating accident, Slater got out of the car to help the two people who had almost died. There were friends of those two people in a bar nearby. They ran to the spot immediately. However, instead of noticing the injured ones, they were startled to see Slater. He explained i

“I was like in a twilight zone. They’re like, oh my god, are you kelly slater? and I was like, your f***ing friends are dying. They were like, oh yeah yeah yeah we’ll uh we’ll try and help or whatever, but they were like it was really strange that they like even thought about who I might be. That’s like I don’t care if the president f***king showed up. I would have been trying to help my friends you know, and you’re having this side of life, and I was like in shock.”

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After the incident, Kelly was highly shocked to see the ignorance of people and how they value more than people’s life.

When is Kelly Slater going to retire?

Indeed, Slater is the greatest surfer of all time. For the last three decades, he has been dominating the surfing world. Even at 50, Slater continues to surprise the world with his amazing talent.

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There has not been any news about his retirement yet. However, in 1998, took a break from surfing only to come back in 2002.