GARDEN CITY, S.C. — A woman has died after she was impaled by a beach umbrella in South Carolina Wednesday afternoon.
According to WBTW, at around 12:40 p.m. on Wednesday, winds at a Garden City beach were picking up and it carried an umbrella.
The Horry County Chief Deputy Coroner Tamara Willard told WPDE that the woman, Tammy Perreault, 63, struck and then impaled by the umbrella.
Willard told WBTW that Perreault was taken to the hospital with trauma to her chest. She died just after 1:30 p.m. Willard also said that the umbrella wasn’t hers.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, there is a way to secure your umbrella when visiting a beach. The best way to do so is by spiking the pole of the umbrella into the sand, bury it about two feet in the sand, tilted it into the wind, anchor the base and make sure the sand is packed well around the base of the umbrella.
“Airborne beach umbrellas can be dangerous, even deadly. Make sure your beach umbrella stays anchored in the sand,” CPSC said on their website.
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