Brazilian surfer Márcio Freire died while surfing on the North Beach in Nazaré on Thursday after falling. He was 47 years old. The Voluntary Firefighters of Nazaré rescued the surfer “to the beach by the water scooter supporting the activity,” as he was practicing tow-in surfing – a modality in which the surfer is towed with a rope to enter the wave when already on the board – at a time when he was in cardiorespiratory arrest. After several attempts at resuscitation, however, “it was not possible to reverse the situation” and “death was declared on the site,” and the Psychology Office of the Maritime Police was “activated to support the victim’s family.” The body was transported to the Institute of Legal Medicine in Leiria. In his last Instagram post, five days ago, Márcio Freire showed himself in Nazaré accompanied by his parents, who came from Brazil to spend Christmas and New Year’s celebrations with their son. Originally from Bahia, the Brazilian did not compete, but challenged himself by trying to surf giant waves. “I never lived off surfing, never made money with surfing. I had very few times, counted on one finger, money that came from surfing,” he said in an interview with the Let’s Surf channel, in one of his last interviews. One of the Mad Dogs (along with Danilo Couto and Yuri Soledade), a trio of Brazilian surfers who gained fame by facing waves of 10, 15, 20 or more meters, was one of the first surfers to ride the formidable Jaws wave in Maui, Hawaii, without the help of jet skis. It was precisely with a documentary about the lives of the Mad Dogs, in 2015, that surfing gave him some money: he won a thousand dollars. “I was living my life and that’s it, working to support myself and self-sponsor,” he said in that interview, stressing that he never “ran after” sponsorships or monetary prizes: “I was more of a soul surfer and didn’t care much.”
