N.J. lifeguard impaled through armpit by beach umbrella in freak wind gust

By Theresa Braine
New York Daily News

ASBURY PARK, N.J. — A lifeguard was impaled by a beach umbrella hurled by a rogue gust of wind at New Jersey’s Asbury Park Beach on Wednesday.

The incident occurred just after 9 a.m. as the 19-year-old was setting up her lifeguard stand, Beach Safety Supervisor John Bongiovanni told the Asbury Park Press. The umbrella gets inserted into the bench to give lifeguards shade for the day.

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Just as she was doing so, “a gust of wind came along and started to pull it up,” Bongiovanni said. “So as it pulled up, she reached and tried to grab it. She grabbed it and pulled it down, and I’m assuming it tilted into the wind and blew it back at her.”

The woman tumbled off the 5-foot-tall lifeguard chair while wrestling with the 6-foot pole-turned-projectile, and the wind drove the one-inch-diameter aluminum rod straight into her front left shoulder, Asbury Park Fire Chief Kevin Keddy told ABC News. It came out her upper back, protruding by about a foot, he said.

First responders found the woman on the ground, with “many lifeguards surrounding her,” Keddy told Jersey Shore Online, treating her until help arrived.

“She basically had a 6-foot umbrella pole that entered into her left armpit and exited out the left side of her back,” Battalion Chief Chris Barkalow of the Asbury Park Fire Department told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “We had to cut it into manageable sections. We can’t put a 6-foot umbrella into the ambulance.”

To keep vibration to a minimum while they cut, first responders resorted to a battery-powered band saw, he said. The injured lifeguard was alert and conscious throughout the ordeal. “She’s a tough young woman,” he told WPVI-TV.

The woman was taken to Jersey Shore University Medical Center, where she underwent surgery and was expected to make a full recovery. Most likely, the woman will be back at work within a couple of weeks, NBC News reported.

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