Big-wave surfer Clyde Aikau is on the mend.

Speaking by phone Wednesday from his hospital bed in Las Vegas, where he’s recovering from open-heart surgery that removed an aortic aneurysm, the legendary Hawaii waterman sounded hale, upbeat and just slightly out of breath.

The retired Honolulu City and County lifeguard expressed gratitude for the support and well wishes he’s been receiving, and said the harrowing experience had inspired him to pursue a new, preventive plan aimed at saving the lives of people with aneurysms.

“I really want to tell the people of Hawaii, thank you for all the love and aloha and prayers,” Aikau told the Star-Advertiser, his voice choking up, adding he wanted to reassure the “thousands” of well-wishers who have been reaching out with concern and donating funds to help cover medical costs.

“I am out of the woods,” said the Oahu resident, who had traveled to Las Vegas to attend last week’s Western Regional Native Hawaiian Conference, “and I’m entering rehab here for another three, four weeks, and then I can jump on the plane and come home.”

The veteran big-wave surfer, 73, noted that after he collapsed outside a Las Vegas restaurant, “being a hard-head Hawaiian, I didn’t want to go urgent care because by the time we got there, I was feeling pretty good, no need,” and he was grateful his friends insisted he be examined.

He clarified that, while the cause of his collapse was an aortic aneurysm, it had not burst. “My aorta, and everyone’s, is normally 3 cm and it had expanded to 8 cm, the biggest the doctors had ever seen,” he said, adding, “if it had burst, I’d be gone.”

From his hospital bed, with his son Ha’a Aikau by his side, Aikau has been talking with stakeholders and potential investors about setting up a foundation to help people at risk for aneurysms, often a hereditary condition, with diagnosis and treatment.

“Our family’s goal has always been to help people,” he said. His older brother, revered big-wave surfer and waterman Eddie Aikau, who died in 1978 trying to rescue his fellow crewmates on the Hokule‘a voyaging canoe, was the first lifeguard at Waimea Bay, where Aikau joined him in the tower in 1966.

Since January, when City and County lifeguard Luke Shepardson won the 37 th Eddie Aikau Big-Wave Invitational at Waimea Bay, Aikau, who directs the event, said he has felt uplifted and inspired by the public recognition and monetary support that has flowed to the city’s junior lifeguard program.

“And don’t forget, it was two rescues on that day and he was in on them,” Aikau said of Shepardson, who was on duty during the Eddie competition and surfed his two heats during his breaks.

But while he was eager to reunite with his wife, Eleni Aikau, his sister Myra and the rest of his family, and get back in the Hawaiian ocean, Aikau said he had to be patient for now and focus on his recovery, step by step.

The Aikau family’s Go Fund Me page can be found at https://gofund.me/623535f5 and as of this writing, $33,748 had been donated toward estimated medical expenses of $200,000.