Tom Green Cheats Death in Costa Rica
Canadian comic Tom Green is recovering from a brush with death in Costa Rica in which he broke two ribs.

“I nearly died yesterday in the ocean,” Green wrote in his blog after being released from hospital.

The Ontario-bred actor  and former husband of Drew Barrymore, was fishing off the rocks on a secluded stretch of shoreline when he was swept into the ocean by a huge wave.

“I actually tried to lean into it, as if that would keep me in my footing. It was like leaning into a freight train. And I was gone. I felt my life flash before my eyes. I had no control. If I hit my head. It was over.”

Green, 34, recalled the terrifying moment he slammed into the rocks.

“I remember barrel rolling in the air, instinctively, the way I would when I wiped out on my skateboard,” he wrote. “And I slammed into the rock, on my side. And I could feel the cracking of bone. And then the water crashing down on top. Tons of it. Smashing me into the rock again.”

“I stumbled onto the shore. I still wasn't sure if I was dead. My mind instantly started trying to assess my injuries. There was blood on my leg. Blood on my elbow, coming out of a harge golf ball sized welt. And my ribs clattered in my chest as I gasped for air. I could feel them moving in my body.”

Another wave hit, knocking him to his knees, and he struggled to breathe.

Green returned to his vacation home, where a local man accompanied him to the hospital 90 minutes away. X-rays revealed two broken ribs and the actor was kept overnight for observation.

“A couple of the younger doctors recognized me, and wanted a picture,” said Green. “That was weird.”

Green, who had a testicle removed due to cancer several years ago, said the pain persists and he can’t stop thinking about his brush with death.

“I can't stop help but feeling really lucky, while I am lying in bed in severe pain,” he wrote. “Kind of strange, to feel this was a lucky thing. It just doesn't make any sense that I am not paralyzed, or broken in more places, or dead.”

Green told his fans the experience taught him an important lesson.

“The ocean is powerful,” he wrote in his blog. “I guess growing up in Ottawa … you don't really learn to read the waves. I didn't treat the ocean with the respect she deserves. I know better now.”