June 25 (UPI) — A New Jersey lifeguard was hospitalized Wednesday after being impaled by a beach umbrella in the morning hours.
The unidentified female lifeguard in central New Jersey’s Asbury Park, believed to be around 20 or 21 years old, was reportedly alert and conscious while as she was transported from the beach near Third Avenue to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune after being treated by an EMT and firefighter.
The incident took place around 9:30 a.m. EDT in Monmouth County.
According to a fellow lifeguard, the roughly six-foot-long umbrella stake pierced her arm after wind took hold of it as she was setting up for the day.
Reports indicate the injury was around the left shoulder and it came out the lifeguard’s back.
Medical personnel cut the umbrella stake with a bandsaw in order to make transporting the victim more manageable, Asbury Park Fire Chief Kevin Keddy told Asbury Park Press.
“It was protruding by about a foot,” Keddy was quoted Wednesday by The New York Post.
About 3,000 people every year are injured by beach umbrellas, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
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