Dolphin jumps on young surfer, impales board

  • 26/09/2016
(YouTube)
(YouTube)

Normally it's sharks that Australian surfers need to watch out for but one young surfer was lucky to escape serious injury from a dolphin.

The mammal leaped out of the wave and straight on top of 13-year-old Jed Gradisen who was surfing near the Western Australia town of Kalbarri.

"The dolphin landed on my shoulder and the back half of my body. The dolphin reacted, I think, really shocked - almost as shocked as I was."

Jed says he was lucky the dolphin jumped so far, so he had a couple of seconds to react.

"I tried to get out of the way and it jumped straight into me, he just dove out of the water and I jumped off my board and tried to get out of the way.

"Its nose went straight through my board. It must have hurt a bit. It was rustling around trying to get free [from the board]."

The 13-year-old is the WA junior surfing champion and had competed in a nearby surf competition the day before.

Aside from being "a bit sore", Jed's father Andrew says it was incredible he walked away uninjured.

"I didn't realise what had happened but I did see a kerfuffle in the water, all the boys in group, and I'm thinking, 'That's weird'.

"'It could have been a lot worse' - that's the first thing I thought. He's damn lucky. It had that much force I'm surprised the board didn't snap in half."

Newshub.