Jersey Shore Tourist Impaled by Beach Umbrella

"It was just an accident," said Margaret Reynolds in a statement, but a gruesome one at that. The 67-year-old London woman was at the beach Monday in Seaside Heights, NJ, when wind ripped an umbrella from the sand; an aluminum part of it impaled her right ankle, with police saying the wind's force caused the part to go clear through it, reports the Asbury Park Press.

A witness tells NJ.com that the piece in question was one of the frame ribs that the fabric covers, and that the gust of wind that sent the umbrella flying "came out of nowhere." Responders used a bolt cutter to free Reynolds, who was taken to the hospital. "I thought I was going to be dealing with a little spoke like on a bicycle tire, but it actually turned out to be three-quarters of an inch by three-quarters of an inch," Assistant Fire Chief William William Rumbolo explained. (A flying umbrella killed this woman in 2016.)