Watch: Big Wave Surfer Kai Lenny Opens Up About 'Life-Changing' Wipeout

KHON2 speaks to him in the video above and captioned it:

"World-renowned waterman speaks about life-changing injury and what saved his life."

Opening the news segment, a reporter says:

"Kai Lenny tells me the experience was traumatic and he has a message he wants to share with others about the safety tool he believes saved his life."

The waterman suffered the "worst concussion of his career" that day.

He blacked out for about five minutes, managed to paddle to shore, and "woke up" at the lifeguard tower.

"I remember dropping into the wave and I was trying to get as low as I could so I could get deep in the barrel and hopefully shoot out the chandelier that was coming down," Lenny recalls. "And all I remember was falling onto my side and everything going black."

He continued:

"The most unnerving part about the whole thing was not remembering holding my breath and getting myself to the surface and getting myself in."

Lenny got lucky that day. In a pre-heat convo with traumatic brain injury survivor and pro surfer Koa Smith, he made a life-saving decision and paddled out wearing a helmet. 

And it most likely saved his life.

"It probably saved my life because that crack in the helmet could have easily been my skull," he says. "I would rather have broken all my limbs than hit my head because your head is responsible for your reality, and my reality was completely gone."

Lenny, who's considering developing a helmet of his own, has advice for surfers:

"Don't worry what anyone else thinks. You can never be too safe."