I think this guy was fine - but it's not always the case. Although one falls into water, the amount of danger you're in when coming off your board depends on the depth of water the possibility of collision with immovable or hard objects - like the seabed, rocks, a surfboard, large marine life, and other surfers. If you're starting off with surfing, I suggest you read this commonsense guide to surviving a wipeout.
Perhaps on the lighter side - I found a post in the Surfing Waves forum suggests the following to be the greatest losses surfers experience:
You spend all your money.
You lose your job because your looking at charts all day.
You lose all your friends 'cos you'll never commit to doing anything at the weekend.
You lose your girl/boy friend cos you smell all the time.
You become obsessed and irrational.
You turn into a miserable git when you dont get your swell fix.
This is perhaps an exaggeration, but surfers, how accurate would you say the quote is?
Take a look here at a few more surfing photos taken on this outing to Mouille Point (map).