Each year, an estimated 4,000 people drown in the United States — and unlikely as it sounds, about as many are injured from wayward beach umbrellas that are improperly rooted or fall victim to winds.
The Aug. 11 impalement death of Tammy Perreault on a Garden City beach has since drawn international attention and another round of advisories from public safety organizations about how these easily preventable accidents can be avoided.
Ed Quigley lost an eye via flying umbrella.
In 2015, Quigley was vacationing with his family at Bethany Beach in Delaware when an umbrella dislodged, penetrated his left eye and stopped in his brain.
Quigley lost vision in that eye and went on to start a website that promotes design initiatives and offers safety advice for beachgoers.
His biggest advice: Use weights at an umbrella’s base or purchase an anchor that screws into the sand to stabilize the devices in heavy winds.
A September 2021 article in Boat Safe, an aquatic research and safety group, explained the danger of unsecured umbrellas like this.
“The pole on many beach umbrellas is six or seven feet long. The canopy can be seven or more feet across. That makes a very wide surface to be picked up by the wind. And the sand anchor on many beach umbrellas is a long, sharp spike,” it said. “Imagine a gust of wind picks up at 50 miles an hour and pulls the umbrella out of the wet sand. What you have is, like we said earlier, a spear. A long pole, a spiked tip, and a high velocity.”
Horry County and Myrtle Beach have limits on what types of umbrellas can be in the sand.
Within the city and county, umbrellas must have a maximum diameter of seven feet and have to be placed either behind an established perimeter or above the high tide line.
Umbrellas are also categorized separately from “shading devices” within the city’s beach safety guidelines, established in 2014.
“Excluding umbrellas, all shading devices shall be secured in such fashion to restrict uncontrolled movement of the device and secured with fasteners, stakes, weights, or the like that will not endanger beach patrons,” the city’s law states.
North Myrtle Beach imposes similar diameter restrictions for umbrellas there.
___
Common umbrella safety tips
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission suggests the following:
— Spike beach umbrella poles into the sand
— Firmly rock them back and forth until they’re buried at least two feet deep
— Tilt them into the wind to prevent them from dislodging and blowing away
— Anchor the base with some type of weight
— Ensure sand around the base of poles is well packed
___
(c)2022 The Sun News (Myrtle Beach, S.C.)
Visit The Sun News (Myrtle Beach, S.C.) at www.thesunnews.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
