A woman was rushed to the hospital Monday morning after a beach umbrella got picked up by a gust of wind and went through the woman’s leg.
It happened outside the Phoenix II Condominiums in Orange Beach.
Officials with the city’s fire department say the woman is okay, but they haven’t seen anything like this before.
Deputy Chief Jeff Smith said they don’t remove impaled objects, so they had to cut both ends of the rod off, stabilize her, and let the doctors do the rest of the work.
Little is known about the woman, only that she is elderly.
Smith said Orange Beach Fire & Rescue came out to that stretch of Orange Beach on Perdido Beach Boulevard around 9 a.m. He said a gust of wind from a storm likely caused the rental umbrella to fly down the beach, going through the woman’s leg.
With our area being in the thick of hurricane season right now, Smith said private tents and umbrellas need to be taken down so they don’t get picked up by the strong winds.
“The services down there do a good job of trying to remove them when bad weather’s coming in but sometimes when storms pop up, gust of wind pops up. It’s happened in the past — not to this extent, but we have had injuries relating to umbrellas in the past,” he said.
Smith also encourages beachgoers to take their umbrellas down when bad weather is coming.
Source: Fox 10 Tv
