Beach horror: Suntanning woman killed by twenty-five-ton front-end loader on Californian beach

The machinery was part of a dredging operation designed to clear the channel which has grown dangerously shallow for boaters coming in and out of the harbor. 

Anti-depressive this ain’t. 

On Monday, a sleeping woman was killed after being run-over by a fifty-thousand pound front-end loader on Oceanside Harbor beach, thirty-eight miles north of San Diego.

The machinery was part of this fall’s dredging operation designed to clear the channel which has grown dangerously shallow for boaters coming in and out of the harbor. 

Typically, the waterway splitting the jetties is cleared each spring to a depth of about twenty-five feet. 

As a result of Covid-induced workhand shortage, the dredging was not completed and shoals have piled up creating shallows of up to eight feet near the South jetty, tricky for vessels ― especially sailboats ― to navigate.  

(And we all know how exhausting it is to bring in the Jeanneau forty-four on a south swell.)

Both the Oceanside City Council and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requested the additional dredging for this fall. 

The death, while officially ruled an accident by the police, still left an impression on many.  

Talking to Fox 5, local Jay Burneo said, “I was going surfing around 8:30 this morning. There was a woman who was leaning against a wall, she looked like she was going to pass out. There was a gentleman that asked if she was OK and she seemed to say, ‘I’m OK.’  When I came back out of the water, I saw her laying here crumbled up and that’s when a police officer told me what happened.”

I spoke with John Daniels, owner of the long-standing LTR Surf School, who was on the beach when it happened.  

“Around 9:45 I saw a woman sort of staggering and my buddy made sure she was doing alright. She said ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.’ She didn’t want any water or anything. I saw her move her leg a bit and thought that it was no big deal.”

Less than fifteen minutes later, the woman was dead. 

“Something caught me eye. I noticed a lifeguard truck, a loader with giant wheels, and a yellow tarp where the woman was laying just a few minutes ago. I told my kids to wait for a second and I ran over and told the lifeguard, ‘Hey, I think that woman was just alive, I just saw her moving.  I think she overdosed. Maybe you can push some Narcan into her.’  But my buddy was like ‘Back away.’ Then I put two and two together. At that point, I was pretty rattled but had to go on. A new group was showing up and I had to shake it off like a dog throws water off its back. It’s rough.”

After the woman was struck, police cordoned off the area with caution tape.  

Maybe a proper thing to do before the front-end loader started ripping around a public beach.

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41 Comments
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Wayne Lunch

Fuck me!…. and you thought Sharks were a problem!

Lucky Al

Nice YouTube upload. The surf event sportcasts in those days were excellent.

Chief Hot stuff

Rabs is standing very close to Dave, pre covid.

Yomar

fuck, even though I know how long the boards where back then it still impresses me!

?uzzled

Compared to the debate this story is antidepressive.

NEGATRON

Sorry, I meant millions.

Sea Of Seven

Just went there this morning to check the surf – spoke to one of the workers he said they constantly have to check in between and inside the pipes as many people sleep there. Instagram @seaofseven

James Bickerton

Cannery Row comes back to Cali ? Or has it never left ?

FL Skunk Ape

Probably a trumper running the front loader. These are not the brightest bulbs in the batch.

James Bickerton

You go in white
And you come out dead
Front end loader … ,
I definitely prefer Alexis Sayle’s Pop up Toaster .

Ed

Un fucking believable. Cops were everywhere if you put your toe on the beach too enforce ” Convid19 Public Safety” now there’s tractors running ppl over!

WTF?

James Bickerton

One is not allowed to die from COVID 19 …The Government will protect you ?

BUT …… help yourself if you want to be

a)shot for Jay walking
,b) run over by machinery
or
c)bitten, and bleed , to death , by an encounter with a protected species …

channelbottom

Little boy spends years obsessing about wheeled farm machinery, John Deere especially.

Goes off to college and decides to leave his childhood interests to develop a more rounded personality.

One day he sees a house on fire and the firemen are nowhere to be seen but a family is trapped with the smoke pouring from every window.

He rushes inside and with one huge inhalation, clears the smoke, allowing the family to rush out, able to see and no longer choking. He steps out of the building and pumps the smoke out his ass into the open air just as the firemen arrive.

The family gather round him and praise his physical talent which saved them.

“Oh it’s nothing,” he says modestly.
“I’m an ex-tractor fan.”

James Bickerton

Luckily he didn’t blow off his balls and end up as an eX MAN ….

NEGATRON

Worked out of town for the day… thousands of comments across multiple stories! Missed anything?

astro

Nup.
Bex is still a dick.

James Bickerton

And dressing to the right .

Derek Hynd's Missing Fins

Negs–what’s the going rate to permanently ban him?

Chief Hot stuff

Always better than being a pussy

James Bickerton

Hope you got some good waves , your secret is safe with us ….. almost ?

ricmatic

N. Dee has been misbehaving. He has this thing called the internet, so he knows alot of stuff.

channelbottom

The narrative of this is confusing.
Was she staggering around after being run over?

I’ve had days like that. Mostly self-inflicted.

Chief Hot stuff

Steve’s been on the piss

Steven Rees

geez, very true.

SSD

Agree on confusing story!
Apparently she was stumbling around prior to getting ran over. Can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t be killed instantly if a giant front loader ran them over. Unless they we’re laying perfectly in a sand hole and the tires rolled over? Oceanside harbor is as sketch as it gets for California beaches. Druggies and assorted weirdos abound. Strange vibe there.
Sad story nonetheless

Steven Rees

What I can’t figure is how the driver of the loader didn’t see her. The guy is probably devastated, but he might need his heavy equipment operator license, yeah? And those guys get paid money to drive that stuff. they need to be good at what they do.

SSD

It is a tragedy for all. He could have been looking away for a second and didn’t even see her.

SSD

He will definitely be at risk of losing operators license. If he still wants to drive a tractor. If the bucket was up and his line of sight was blocked it could happen easily. The big question is wether the are was closed off and she went in there

Steven Rees

It was wide open. You can walk anywhere you want. And you’re right.. Just a tragedy all around. I

JohnsKnees

Oceanside Harbor is sketchy but its nowhere near the top of the list. Venice and Ocean beach are far sketchier.

Stephen Wolfram

Degrees of sketchiness, what kind of scale is used? I’m not a local so I would love a breakdown by someone who lives/surfs that part of the country!

James Bickerton

Luckily Occy , only buried his 4 boards , at the beach in Hossegor , France , late 80s , which copped a similar treatment by beach cleaning machinery .A very handsome and talented former European Champion ( my girlfriend at the time’s ex boyfriend ) was in the house that year with Occ and Nicky W and the stories , he told me about the incident and the lead up to it ,would be absolutely hilarious …. had both Occy and Nicky not lost the plot in the months following … Occy came back to be world champ and Nick ( who surfed about 10 hours a day as a kid / 7 days a week , before winning Bells at 16 ) I suppose is still around somewhere…… ? Newcastle ?

Chief Hot stuff

His sister used to be in a band
Lead singer tiffany wood
Not as hot as sophie
But very close
If you watch the video closely you will notice that they all appear to be extremely horny.

James Bickerton

Edward Woodward would get a woody ….. which reminds of the French joke about Bardot .
So a young French woman , recently married , in the 60s , decides to give her husband a surprise by getting the initials of his favorite actress, Brigitte Bardot , tattooed on her derrière ( bum ) …. anyway they turn up at the beach and she says “ honey check out the surprise I got for you … I’ll just bend over so you can really see the art work . “ The young husband explodes in a rage “ WHO THE FUCK IS BoB ! “ …. boom boom

SSD

Selling that sex! I’d shocked and amazed if any were that horny in real life

@surfads

Goldy now

James Bickerton

Still surfing a bit ?

channelbottom

Stay out of the water.

It’s all lumpy and crashy, with crazy people sort of swimming on plastic things then letting the smashy lumpy water push them towards shore.

It’s dangerous up North.

There’s horrid things with sharp teeth up there. But never mind the Coffey sisters, look out for sharks too.

James Bickerton

Not to mention the Great White ……Shoe Brigade ?

“ noun INFORMAL•AUSTRALIAN
noun: white shoe brigade
(especially during the 1980s) wealthy business people of Queensland, typically property developers, perceived as aggressively commercial, vulgarly showy, and politically conservative.
“the white shoe brigade preferred the real-estate speculation model of productivity”……

SSD

According to my brother in laws Dominican wife, they have a tradition of burying their ice in the sand. Enterrar hielo. Saves money on having to buy a cooler or Esky as you would say. Downside is its not very portable.

James Bickerton

Sounds like a real beach grit special


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