A flying beach umbrella impaled a woman’s leg straight through on Monday at an Alabama beach.
Officials escorted the victim to the hospital from the Phoenix II Condominiums at Orange Beach after a gust of wind loosened the umbrella and propelled it into her limb, the local fire department said.
Authorities did not remove the umbrella because they are not permitted to remove impaled objects, Deputy Chief Jeff Smith said, according to WSAZ.. Instead, Orange Beach Fire Department cut off both ends of the umbrella’s rod, and the woman was stabilized. Doctors reportedly handled the rest. (RELATED: Construction Worker Barely Escapes Death After Falling Onto Steel Rod, Getting Impaled: REPORT)
The unidentified elderly woman is in stable condition, according to the fire department. The fire department claims to have never witnessed an injury like this before, WSAZ reported.
“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,” the deputy chief said about beach umbrellas. “It’s happened in the past — not to this extent, but we have had injuries relating to umbrellas in the past.”
This is not the first time a beachgoer was impaled by an umbrella. A South Carolina woman was killed in Aug. 2022 after an umbrella swept up by winds impaled her in the chest.