By Gwen Mickelson
Sentinel staff writer
SANTA CRUZ ? Freddie Peterson was one of the hottest surfers on the south side of the Huntington Beach pier in the '70s ? so hot that shots of him kneeboarding made Surfing magazine, and the kids tacked photos of him to their bedroom walls.
But in 1978, while riding his Harley-Davidson to work, Peterson was broadsided by a 1963 Cadillac in the intersection of Beach Boulevard and Adams Avenue in Huntington Beach.
"I had no broken bones except a broken leg," said Peterson, 52. "Broken and crushed"
He lost the leg just below the knee. And for 20 years, he lost surfing, too.
It wasn't until 1996 that advances in prosthetics stopped the relentless chafing that left Peterson's skin-grafted stump irritated and bleeding.
"In 1998, I was on the living room floor watching a surf flick, and I got up on my knees," said Peterson, a husky man with strawberry blond hair and freckles who now lives in Cayucos. "And I thought, 'I'm gonna do this again. I'm gonna shred.'"
And he did. He ordered a custom kneeboard from his old friend, the late Carl Hayward, who worked at Costa Mesa surf company Hurley Hayward died in 2005. When he got back in the water, he found it was like riding a bike. Kneeboarders paddle into the waves and then power their short, squat boards from their knees.
"I was just stoked," said Peterson of that first session, in classic surfer fashion.
His upper body strength was good since he swam for exercise, and once he figured out the logistics of whether to bend his knee or stand on it, everything came rushing back, said Peterson, and he caught 20 or so waves.
"I was hooting for myself," he said.
For the past three years, Peterson has taken part in kneeboard-community nonprofit Kneeboard Surfing USA events, and he's a contestant in the World Kneeboard Championship being held at Steamer Lane Tuesday through Saturday. He took third in his first heat Tuesday.
"Freddie's a legend," said Mike Garrett, 44, a Kneeboard Surfing USA member who now lives in Mariposa but remembers Peterson in his younger Huntington Beach days. "His reputation was as a charger, and he still goes for it. You gotta admire the guy. He's an inspiration"
Some competitors at the contest even remember the color of the board Peterson was riding in that Surfing magazine shot, because they spent so much time staring at it on their wall back in the '70s when kneeboarding was big.
"Yellow and red," said Bill Lerner, 45, a kneeboarder from Cardiff. Those photos are still considered classics, Lerner said. "He had such good style, it was kind of Zen almost ? he was right in the tube"
Peterson had been a lifeguard and was planning on becoming a fireman when he lost his leg. Instead, he's spent the past 26 years as a certified public accountant.
In the water, he wears a silicone sock and a custom wetsuit sock. He surfs in Cayucos and Jalama, leaving his slender prosthetic leg at the high tide mark on the beach.
"When people see my leg out there, they know it's Freddie," said Peterson, smiling.
At the world championships at the Lane, helpers assisted Peterson in getting in and out of the water.
"He still has the same flame and desire that he did back in the day," said Don Harris, president of Kneeboard Surfing USA.
But Peterson is looking for more than the competitive aspect of the event, saying he's enjoying seeing people he hasn't seen in years.
"I just want to have fun," said Peterson, looking out over the rail to the diamond-glittering water, where overhead sets stacked up in blue lines under a bold winter sun. "If I place, hey ? that's icing on the cake"
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