HUNTINGTON BEACH Unseasonably warm weather and ocean temperatures have sent stingray injuries skyrocketing at Huntington Beach city beaches, reaching an all-time high of 438 incidents so far this year, officials say.
In the last month, 137 people were stung – more than six times as many compared with the 22 injuries reported for the same time period last year, said Mike Beuerlein, the city's marine safety lieutenant.
Beuerlein said while there's no official count of the stingray population, there could potentially be thousands along the Huntington Beach coast.
Surfers, swimmers, and even knee-deep waders need to be cautious.
“It's a combination of waders and surfers who get stung ... pretty much anyone who's in the water,” Beuerlein said. “You'd be amazed at how many stingrays there are out there. They tend to be more spread out, but when the waves are small, they all come in close to shore and get bunched in there.”
Marine safety officers and lifeguards at Huntington City Beach had their hands full the last weekend of October.
Between Saturday and Sunday there were 64 stingray injuries, and at one point 14 patients were treated simultaneously.
A typical beach crowd on the weekend this time of year is about 10,000 people, but this year it's doubled to 20,000, Beuerlein said. With warmer-than-usual temperatures and small surfs, people are still flocking to the beaches.
“Usually at the end of August or September is when the (water) temperature tends to peak, at least coastally in Orange County, and the cold spikes are sometime in October or November,” said Julianne Steers, chief aquarist for the Ocean Institute in Dana Point. “But it's not on a specific date. It's nature, it doesn't follow a calendar.”
Seal Beach is known for its large population of stingrays and number of injuries. Lt. Chris Pierce of Seal Beach Marine Safety was surprised by the recent increase at Huntington Beach, though his city has also seen an increase for the last month.
“Overall, our numbers for the year are down by 85, a 16 percent decrease,” Pierce said. “But for the past month, we're up by 8 ... a 57 percent increase.”
Seal Beach reported 22 incidents for the month of October.
Marine Safety Officer Matt Karl, a Huntington Beach lifeguard for 20 years, said when there are more incidents than usual, lifeguards and marine safety personnel warn beach-goers.
They were busy the last weekend of October.
“We usually don't even make announcements, but that weekend when we had so many injuries, we were actually just pulling up to groups and encouraging them to talk to us about how to avoid getting injured,” Karl said.
When a person is stung by a ray, the animal's barb punctures through the skin and releases toxins. As time progresses, the toxins spread across the body and become increasingly painful.
Although the pain can be extreme for some victims, everyone has a different tolerance to the toxins, but it typically isn't deadly, Steers said.
“A lot of the cases are pretty severe, not that there's necessarily long-term repercussions from getting stung, but the pain level can be so severe that people just lose it,” Karl said.
All lifeguards have basic first aid training and supervisors are certified in EMT training.
Beuerlein said that after an hour of treatment for the stings, if the patient is still in pain or if the wound looks infected, they are transferred to the hospital.