Pain looms under cool beach sand: How to avoid stingrays

If you have the good fortune to beat the heat at the ocean, do the “stingray shuffle,” a lifeguard captain said Friday.

The warm ocean temperatures and calm waves are attracting more than the usual number of stingrays to Los Angeles County beaches, said Lifeguard Capt. Kenichi Haskett.

“Shuffle your feet along the sandy bottom to alert stingrays to your presence so they have time to move away,” Haskett said.

“We have seen countless stingrays throughout the Santa Monica Bay, with several causing stingray hits,” he said.

The flat fish with eyes and nostrils on top of their bodies and mouths and gills underneath are often partially buried in the shallow, sandy water. If someone steps on them, the stingray will consider that a provocation and lash its tail upwards, Haskett said. The tail can puncture the skin and release venom into the skin with intense pain that radiates up the leg.

If you are stung, notify a lifeguard immediately, he said. A lifeguard will apply hot water to the sting to ease pain and clean it with antiseptic to avoid infection.

— City News Service