Latest Status Of Jersey Shore Lifeguard Who Was Impaled By Umbrella

ASBURY PARK, NJ — The Asbury Park lifeguard who was impaled by an umbrella in a freak accident will be released from the hospital Thursday, after she underwent surgery Wednesday to remove the umbrella from her arm, according to her boss.

Joe Bongiovanni, who runs the lifeguard and surf patrol program for the city of Asbury Park, said he visited the 19-year-old in her hospital room at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune Wednesday night.

"She was in great spirits. She was sitting up in bed, talking, laughing. Two of her friends, fellow lifeguards from the program, were there and her parents were there. The doctors told her six to eight weeks of recovery, and she immediately goes 'Oh good, I can come back to work this summer then.' She would come back to work tomorrow if she could," he said. "She is one tough cookie."

Her name has not been released by authorities. But overnight, she made national headlines after she fell off the lifeguard stand where she was working and was impaled on a six-foot-long metal umbrella.

It was 9:30 a.m. Wednesday — day three of an intense heat wave — and the woman was setting up for the day's work on the Third Avenue beach in Asbury Park. She was standing on top of the lifeguard stand, which is about five feet off the ground, and she was setting up the umbrella when suddenly a gust of wind came and knocked both her and the umbrella to the ground, said Bongiovanni.

She landed on top of the umbrella, and it pierced her arm, according to Bongiovanni. The umbrella went through her arm, right below her tricep, and came out through her back and shoulder area. It did not injure her torso or chest area at all, he said.

"It did pierce her lateral muscle, but it never touched the bone," he said. "She's lucky and she's unlucky at the same time. If she had landed one inch to the right, the umbrella wouldn't have touched her at all. Two inches to the left, it would have gone through her body. She is petite. She's not even five feet tall on a good day and I'd say she's 90 pounds."

Bongiovanni said two other lifeguards were on the stand with her that morning and they immediately radioed for help. Other Asbury Park lifeguards, in their signature red bathing suits, raced to the scene. First responders had to use a saw to cut the umbrella at both ends so the woman could be taken to the hospital with the umbrella still impaled through her.

"Our team is really good. One lifeguard who also works as an athletic trainer immediately covered the injury so the young woman couldn't see it. They stabilized her and I personally drove her up on my quad to the ambulance. She said she didn't want to be taken out on a stretcher; she wanted to sit up for the ambulance ride to the hospital and keep talking."

Bongiovanni said she was immediately rushed into emergency surgery and "she was out of surgery by 2 p.m. Wednesday. It's really remarkable, but she will be released today."

He did say such a traumatic event has been "difficult, emotionally, for our team. These are all great young kids here, and to see one of them get injured like this ... We train for this, we prepare for everything but yes, it's been tough. My phone was ringing every two minutes Wednesday; we had news helicopters circling the beach. It was an intense day."

He said one of the young woman's friends, a fellow lifeguard, was particularly shaken up by what happened to her friend.

"We are offering counseling to all our lifeguards for this, yesterday and continuing today," he said.

The young woman commutes every day from the Robbinsville area, outside Trenton, to her job as an Asbury Park lifeguard. This is her summer job; she lives with her parents in Robbinsville and in the winter she is a student at the University of Wisconsin. This is her second year as an Asbury Park lifeguard and Bongiovanni said the young woman is known as being "a hard worker, always smiling, always ready to help out. She is very well liked on the team."

Bongiovanni said he fully expects the woman will be back on the lifeguard stand by August.

"She really is a remarkable young woman."

This is not the first time someone has been injured by a beach umbrella on the Jersey Shore: In July 2018 in Seaside Heights, a 67-year-old British tourist, a woman, was impaled in the ankle by a beach umbrella. The umbrella was suddenly blown by a gust of wind. It pierced her ankle and came out "five inches through the other side," according to media reports.

Wednesday: Lifeguard Impaled By Umbrella At Jersey Shore Beach