JellyFish Attack At Wallis Sands Beach

By Jim on July 22nd, 2010

Ugh. It must have REALLY sucked being in the water with this freaking thing!

A large, dead, jellyfish caused mayhem at Wallis Sands beach yesterday when it stung about 150 people in the water.
Five people were hospitalized, park manager Ken Loughlin said. The jellyfish, about 50 pounds and the diameter of a large hubcap, came near shore around 2 p.m. A lifeguard used a pitchfork to snag it and take it from the water, Loughlin said.

About 10 to 15 minutes later, chaos broke out, he said.

“All of a sudden people just started pouring up here,” he said of the beach’s main building. “All the little kids were crying. It was quite the disaster scene, like something out of a movie.”

It’s likely the jellyfish’s bell, or head, was removed, but its stinging tentacles remained in the water and got snagged on beach-goers.

Rye firefighter paramedics and lifeguards at Wallis Sands State Park treat people who were stung by a large dead jellyfish yesterday.

I remember this happening when I was a kid on the cape, after a storm. Somebody got stung badly by a jellyfish, it made me be very careful about going into the water. Those things are nasty!

The lion’s mane jellyfish (Cyanea capillata) is the largest known species of jellyfish. Its range is confined to cold, boreal waters of the Arctic, northern Atlantic, and northern Pacific Oceans, seldom found farther south than 42°N latitude. Similar jellyfish (which may be the same species) are known from the seas off Australia and New Zealand. The largest recorded specimen, found washed up on the shore of Massachusetts Bay in 1870, had a bell (body) with a diameter of 2.3 m (7 feet 6 inches) and tentacles 36.5 m (120 feet) long.

They think it was a Lion’s Mane Jellyfish.

How would you like to be in the water with one of these suckers? I think I’d have a heart attack if I could actually see it in the water before I swam into its tentacles. Must hurt like hell.

WMUR also has a slideshow about the jellyfish attack.

Edit: Looks like the lifeguard who removed the jellyfish might have goofed. Well you can’t really blame him, he did the best he could to get it out of the water and away from the swimmers.

A lifeguard’s disposal of a jellyfish at Wallis Sands beach Wednesday likely contributed to the creature’s tentacles stinging more than 100 people, a University of New Hampshire marine biologist said Thursday.

The jellyfish, the size of a large hubcap and likely of the lion’s mane variety, came ashore close to 2 p.m. Wednesday when a lifeguard used a pitchfork to snatch it and throw it away, park manager Ken Loughlin said.

Within 15 minutes, dozens of people poured from the water complaining of stings, likely from the tentacles that remained behind.

“The worst thing that lifeguard could have done was pick it up with a pitchfork, because pieces would have gone everywhere,” said Larry Harris, a professor of marine biology at UNH. “It was a recipe for disaster.”