Boy Injured By Flying Umbrella At Gloucester Beach

GLOUCESTER (CBS) – A 13-year-old boy was injured by a flying umbrella at Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester on Friday.

Firefighters responded to the beach at about 1:40 pm.

A woman who works in an emergency room was one of the first people to respond, applying a tourniquet while waiting for first responders to arrive.

"[The] umbrella just hit the kid and we just saw him bleeding," she said.

The boy was impaled in his left shoulder, and witnesses say he was bleeding profusely.

"All I heard was like a woman scream, and then the umbrella went flying, so I just went to see, and he was just laying on the ground like this, and then his mom's like 'get the lifeguard!" witness Brandon Phillips said.

The boy, who is from Florida, sustained serious but not life-threatening injuries after he was struck by the umbrella that had gone airborne.

The "freak accident" taught beach-goers an important lesson.

"You know what I did after that? I came back, pulled my umbrella down," said witness Sharon Sangster. "And then if I left and went to the beach, my umbrella came down."

Gloucester EMTs carried the boy off the beach and he was taken to Beverly Hospital.

Lt. Nick Oullette of Gloucester Fire said witnesses were "surprisingly calm."

"For such a rare occurrence, people were quite calm," he said.

The boy is facing serious injuries to his shoulder, but officials say he will be okay.