Tom Green just wanted to get away from it all in Central America, but ended up in hospital with two broken ribs after he was hit by a giant wave.

"I nearly died yesterday in the ocean," the Ottawa comic rapper wrote on his blog Tuesday. Green had just started testing out a new fishing rod on some volcanic rock Monday when he saw a "huge wave" heading in his direction.

"Milliseconds later I slammed hard onto 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 onto 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."

Green, who was alone at the time, said he stumbled back to the house where he's staying. He then enlisted a local man to accompany him and act as translator, before making a bumpy 90-minute ride to the closest hospital.

Green said he was X-rayed and kept overnight for observation. When he woke up, "a couple of the younger doctors recognized me, and wanted a picture. That was weird."

The cancer survivor said he found it strange the incident left him feeling lucky to be alive. "It just doesn't make any sense that I am not paralyzed, or broken in more places, or dead," he wrote. Green has given several updates since his "Near Death Experience" post Tuesday. In one he described videotaping himself rolling around in bed, in too much pain to do anything else.

Green confessed he'd been nearly swept out to sea the day before the rib-cracking incident when his surfboard hit a rip tide. He had thought fishing would be a way to take it easy.

"The ocean is powerful," wrote Green. "I guess growing up in Ottawa, Canada, a land-locked city of one million, you don't really learn to read the waves. I didn't treat the ocean with the respect she deserves. I know better now."

Judging from his entries, Green might be staying in Central America -- where he is working on new music -- for some time.

As he tells the fans he calls "gang," this trip will last for just three weeks. But he writes about looking forward to getting high-speed satellite lines in place so he can post video to his site the way he does back in Los Angeles, instead of using a local hotel's internet cafe.

"That won't be for a few months, I'm afraid," he wrote.