Lifeguard impaled by umbrella on New Jersey beach
A lifeguard is recovering in hospital after a freak accident, in which she was impaled by a beach umbrella at a New Jersey beach on Wednesday morning, officials said.
The incident happened around 9:30 a.m. as the woman was setting up her umbrella for the day. According to authorities, strong winds picked up the umbrella and the stake went through the front of her left shoulder and pierced through the back of her arm.
Asbury Park Fire Chief Kevin Keddy told ABC News that the six-foot-long stake was sticking out of the back of her arm by about one foot.
'She's a tough young woman,' the chief said.
Her fellow lifeguards were treating her, when the fire department showed up and took over. Because of the umbrella's length, the responders used a portable band saw to cut the umbrella stake in the front and the back, first, to make her transport by ambulance to the hospital more manageable.
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'When we dropped her off, she was conscious and alert and in good spirits — all things considered,' Keddy told the New York Post.
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The Asbury Park Professional Firefighters Union, whose members helped stabilize the woman for transport, called it a 'low frequency' incident, meaning it's a type of call they don't see very often.
0:54
Teen injured by a flying beach umbrella at Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester
And while it is rare to be impaled by an umbrella, it does happen.
In August of 2022, a woman in South Carolina died after a loose beach umbrella became airborne and impaled her in the chest.
The woman was fatally wounded in the accident when a gust of wind pulled the beach umbrella from its anchoring.
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The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) says that 'airborne beach umbrellas can be dangerous, even deadly.'
The organization recommends umbrellas to be properly secured to avoid injury.
Most beach umbrellas are equipped with a spiked end and anchors designed to push through sand to at least two feet deep (60 cm). The CPSC also recommends beach umbrellas be angled against the direction of any winds, so as not to lift the wide canopy from the ground.
The CPSC claimed 31,000 people were treated in hospitals for umbrella-related injuries in the U.S. alone between 2008 and 2017. The injuries ranged in severity, though most victims were women over the age of 40.
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