He'll Be Back
At the beginning of his part, Pat's buddy, Joel Wrona, says something that seems more relevant today than ever before: "Pat's actually a Terminator. He came here from the future and then his program malfunctioned," spouts Wrona. "So now he can fall on his face and it won't hurt him."
Ten months ago, Duffy was at Bob Burnquist's infamous mega ramp, hanging out with Danny Way, and hoping to get a shot at clearing the ramp's 70-foot gap. Danny spent the day doing lip tricks on the ramp's thirty-foot wall, while giving Pat tips on how to successfully roll away from the monstrous gap. As he prepared himself, the sun began to set and Pat was forced to postpone his attempts. It wasn't until a month later that Pat made it back.
"I actually warmed up that day, but I just wasn't' being smart about it. I just figured I could make the jump, do the air and everything was gonna be great," recalls Duffy. "What I really should have done was been skating the vert ramp for a few weeks—I hadn't skated vert or anything that big in a while."
"As soon as you make the gap you're either in for an air or you jump off—this was like, 'oh, I made it.' I was super-psyched, so I was like, 'Alright, let's just get this air done.'"
As he approached the opposite wall, Duffy compressed his body in order to suck up his pump, slow down, and reduce the height of his air. But when he hit the lip, he was too far compressed.
"I just opened up a little bit and it just threw me out to the flat. If I would have just stayed centered and would have just gone for the air with the speed that I had, I would have gone about 10 or 12 feet, but would have been able to bail at the end of the tranny and been fine," recounts Pat. "I'm not really a vert skater, so I didn't go to my knees or try to use my pads at all, I just went for my feet and I could feel that I did something to my knee."
Pat's tibial plateau was broken in three places and his ACL ligament was completely detached. Unsure if his leg was broken or dislocated, he tried to straighten it out on the ramp's flatbottom.
Duffy's slam was a virtually unknown incident outside of the skateboarding community. On the other end of the spectrum, Jake Brown slammed on the mega at this year's X Games, which was televised. While Pat fell roughly 30 feet to flatbottom, Jake fell around 45 feet. Jake's slam was witnessed by millions watching the X Games, including Pat who was right there, ten rows back from the mega ramp at the STAPLES Center.
"I was watching it, first-hand, right there. I couldn't even look. He made his line that he wanted to do and he tried to step it up and just got so unlucky," Pat says. "Obviously everyone says the same thing, but I still can't believe he walked away from it. I went to the hospital and stuff and stayed with him to make sure he was alright."
Jake's plunge to the ground was at least 10 feet higher than Pat's, yet somehow the five-foot-six Australian managed to land in a way that allowed him to escape major injury.
"I'm sure what saved him was that he did this ninja spin move in the air and just took it to his back," Duffy says. "He knew he wasn't going to hit tranny and the pads were useless. He spun around at the last second and took it to his elbows and his feet and his back and kind of absorbed the shock (throughout) his entire body."
"I got six screws and (a) big, good sized plate in there and they hurt, so I got to get those taken out. And I also feel that there's some scar tissue underneath my knee cap that I need to get scraped off," he says.
In the meantime Duffy is getting ready to have a kid, playing music with Danny Way, playing poker with friends and rehabilitating his body so he can be back skating soon.
"I'm definitely a veteran in the skateboard world but I definitely want to squeeze out one more video part that I'm proud of," says Pat.
Mr. Duffy is unstoppable. Whether or not he's a Terminator...we'll have to check that video part that he wants to film to find out. Chances are, he'll be back.
Check in with the other mega slammer, Jake Brown, for a live chat on Tuesday, November 20 at 4 p.m. ET.
