Surfer falls 40 feet from top of giant wave in Hawaii

PEAHI, Hawaii, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- A pro surfer who plunged 40 feet from the top of a huge wave in Hawaii said it felt like he "jumped off a cliff," but he suffered only a sore neck.

Tom Dosland was surfing at the Jaws wave surfing break in Maui Wednesday when his massive plunge from the top of a giant wave was caught on camera.

Dosland said the wipe-out broke his board in half, but he suffered only a sore neck from the estimated 40-foot fall.

The World Surfing League shared video of the incident on its WSL Big Wave Awards YouTube page.

"Tom Dosland (Haiku, Hawaii, USA) gets hung up above the lip and then is boosted into a space walk for the ages while still tethered to his launch craft at Jaws," the video's caption reads.

Dosland told Surfer Magazine he "instantly realized that this wasn't going to end well."

"I sort of hit the eject button hoping to make the best of it and penetrate," he said.

"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. It was so intense that I basically froze and forgot to pull my vest. Toward the end of it, I realized I hadn't pulled the chord, so I finally did and popped to the top of the water. But yeah, it was rough, man."