Summer has been and gone and the schools are back and while the weather hasn't been perfect this year, there has been plenty of time for locals and holidaymakers alike to go to the beach. The feeling of catching those rays, relaxing on the golden sands, and swimming in the gorgeous blue seas is a special one.
But 25 years ago, that was very much not what one day at the beach was like. It's known as 'The Day the Sea Turned Red in Devon'. And it's no exaggeration.
It started as a total mystery. One minute everything was perfectly ordinary on this sunny Sunday, August 10 1998. Within the space of a few hours between 800 and 1,000 people were injured and witnesses described the scenes on Paignton Beach as 'like a scene from Jaws'.
People everywhere were covered in blood and mass panic began. Emergency services were called and the police walked the seafront from Preston to Goodrington telling people to leave the water. Thirty people were so badly hurt that they had to be taken to Torbay Hospital.
The beach was full with the sounds of laughter, waves and seagulls – but within minutes, holidaymakers and locals started fleeing the beach screaming, with blood streaming from their feet. Paignton Regatta was in full swing and the seafront was packed - and then the day turned into something from a horror movie.
The drama began at around 1pm when the first casualties began turning up at the council’s first aid centre on Paignton Green saying they had cut their feet on something sharp in the water. And as more and more paddled in the warm shallows of an exceptionally low tide, more and more began turning up with injuries.
Police, beach attendants and the emergency services declared it an emergency scene and called bathers out of the sea as a fleet of ambulances raced to the seafront. The new Devon Air Ambulance landed on the Green. Torbay Council declared a ‘total emergency’ as paramedics, coastguards, police and first-aiders treated the injured. Eventually the mass panic began to ease as the mystery of what had happened was solved.
All the injured suffered cuts to their feet after standing on the shells of razor fish which were buried in the sand. The exceptionally low tide meant people were paddling in areas that were not usually accessible. Within a few minutes it was clear that the feeding razor fish had sparked a major incident.
Torbay’s then-MP Adrian Sanders, who was on the beach with wife Alison when the panic started, said: “It was like a scene from Jaws as the police cleared the sea of people.”
The chaotic scenes made national headlines. Brian Pearce, beach manager for Torbay Council at the time, told the Independent newspaper that hundreds of bathers had been streaming out of the sea with lacerations to their feet.
He said: “The majority had small cuts, but a few had bad ones which were treated in hospital. I have never seen anything like it. I hope I do not see it again.”
Ambulances began arriving, picking their way through crowds thronging Paignton Green, and Torbay Hospital’s casualty department was placed on full alert. Similar reports of injuries also began pouring in from nearby Preston Beach, and from neighbouring Broadsands and Hollicombe.
Ambulance sirens could be heard from all directions, drowning out the loud karaoke singing from one of the seafront pubs, and the emergency services were soon at full stretch. New ambulances had to be called to bring in fresh supplies of dressings and saline fluid for cleaning wounds, and the Devon Air Ambulance helicopter landed on the green – halting a regatta rounders tournament – to deliver new supplies.
Ambulance group station officer Chris Coles was among the first to arrive. He said: “We knew straight away we were dealing with multiple casualties.” Red Cross volunteers, taking part in a display at Brixham, were summoned to the scene, along with colleagues from the St John Ambulance service.
In the middle of Paignton Green, where moments before there had been families picnicking and eating ice cream, police taped off an area which became an impromptu field hospital. Paramedics finished dressing one victim’s wounds, looked up and shouted “Next!”
Police chief Inspector Peter Dale assessed the situation and asked his officers to walk the beach near the waterline, calling bathers out of the water and sending them back to the safer areas away from the razor fish beds.
Eleven-year-old Lana McAreavey from Princes Street in Paignton stepped on one of the shells and had to have a wound on her foot bound up by a paramedic. She said “It does hurt a bit, and I can’t put my shoe on.”
Another holidaymaker said: “I was just walking through the shallow water when I felt something with my foot. It was so sharp that I didn’t realise I was cut until I looked down and saw the blood.”
Holidaymaker Sarah Richards from Pontefract, West Yorkshire, needed three stitches to her wound. Sarah, 10, said: “I was walking with my mum and I trod on something. Then I started screaming.”
Ten-year-old Charlotte Mills, on the beach with her dad Tim Brown, had two stitches in her cut foot. Charlotte said: “I was in the water and something cut my foot. I thought it was a crab at first. Then I saw a massive cut on my foot and my friend gave me a piggyback up the beach.”
Torbay Hospital staff spent more than two hours treating casualties. Thirty patients, mostly children, were taken for treatment and part of the hospital’s A&E department was specially set aside for them.
A hospital spokesman explained: “I have never seen anything like it before and people who have lived here for years have never heard of this kind of thing happening.’‘
Torbay Council quickly placed warning signs on the beaches. Hundreds of leaflets were handed out and loudhailer warnings given. Local traders quickly sold out of flip-flops and plastic ‘jelly’ shoes.
