A Personal Narrative
By: Brittany Caruso
There were stingrays close to shore. The lifeguards were making announcements often enough, I’m sure even the creatures themselves were nervous about being there. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful day to be at the beach. Of course it was San Clemente, so the chance of good weather and good water was consistently high. Southern California rarely disappoints. It was a couple weeks into the summer vacation between our junior and senior year of high school and the previous six days of sunshine were a sure sign of a spectacular season. The beaches were filled, the sun was brilliant, the green flags were waving (a welcoming notice that the tides were calm), and the air smelt of a tropical island with coconut-scented sunscreen. It was perfect.
My friend Haley and I hadn’t had the chance to hang out very much together during the school year, so this was the perfect chance for us to relax, chitchat and catch up on all those so exhilarating-and-at-the-time-oh-so-important school rumors and dramas. It was close to noon and the smells wafting over from Fisherman’s Restaurant on the pier to our right were almost too inviting to ignore, but we decided on swimming first and eating later—usually the better choice when one considers the “have-to-wait-one-hour-or-you’ll-get-a-cramp-from-swimming” guideline. We found a spot on the beach, quickly laid our towels out and placed our belongings on their corners to keep them from blowing over with the breeze. Then, we walked briskly across the 100 feet of heating sand to the water’s edge in our brand new bathing suits from Pac Sun. We felt invincible. There is always a slight feeling of invincibility one feels right before entering the water. Of course, the moment that cold, California water touches your toes, the feeling quickly sinks away; the way your feet do as they descend into the mushy sand along the shoreline when you stand still for too long. Regardless, we felt great. Not invincible anymore, but still great. Not even the countless signs posted everywhere marked, “Make sure to shuffle your feet!” could fizzle our excitement. Stingrays or not, we were going to have an amazing day at the beach.
The rushing water ran over our feet as we inched our way forward, and with a perfect break in the set, we ran in full force and dove beneath the crashing whitewash of the next incoming wave. The water was brisk and salty, but beneath the sun’s rays, it felt superb. We lounged for some time in the placid tide, talking about the previous school year and our future plans for after graduation, and after relaxing for a bit, realizing our toes were getting numb, we body-surfed some of the larger waves coming in. And all the while, remembering to shuffle our feet! It was hard to forget. As contented and carefree as we were, the knowledge of potentially being stung never left our minds—at least not right away.
Stingrays were not as common of an occurrence on our shores in San Clemente. Sharks are what you heard about more than anything. And there were a lot of those around too. But today there was an unusual tension in the air; especially even more in the water amongst the swimmers. The surfers and bodyboarders didn’t seem to mind. The reason being of course that they all had a board to float on and so the need to shuffle feet, or even to touch the sandy floor was absent. Lucky them. It was all quite amusing though. Our entertainment came from watching summer tourists figuring out how they should shuffle their feet. I saw more than one person trip over themselves entering the water while trying to avoid having to lift their foot even one inch off the ground. And then, even more shuffling their feet while still on the beach, walking to the restrooms or really anywhere, as if a stingray had somehow managed to blanket its way up out of the water and onto the beach with the sole purpose of wanting to sting someone just for the joy of it. Tourists. It made our day though. If there were going to be tourists around, at least we could deal with them while getting a good laugh about it.
It had been close to a couple hours. Haley and I had come in from the water to warm up and gone back out to swim a few times up to this point. We could hear our bellies rumble as they were more than apt to remind us of the delicious smells blowing in from the pier. We agreed to split buffalo wings and mozzarella sticks, which, in my opinion, is the most delicious way to rejuvenate from one’s ocean adventures. We grabbed our things and walked to the restaurant to get some lunch.
We talked and laughed some more, enjoying the cool breeze amid the hot summer sun, and not long after we ordered, we noticed some movement and commotion down on the beach. As if there weren’t enough people already with the tourists and all, today was also apparently junior lifeguard day. The kids from ages eight to twelve by the looks of it, with their senior trainers, were preparing to do their training exercises, creating a large group of onlookers. Supposedly some people have never seen children or lifeguards before. I had guessed though that they couldn’t have picked a better day to train with all the stingrays around and the couple of people who had already been stung to teach the kids what to do in these types of situations, but it certainly was a lot to have going on at one beach for the atmosphere to be relaxing. Haley and I finished lunch and decided this time to go a little further down the beach to try and escape the clatter of people. We found a nice spot about a hundred and fifty yards further down. We settled in, lounged in the sun until our food settled and once again headed out into the waves.
After about a half hour or so the tide really started to rise and the waves were becoming more powerful so we decided to join in with most others and head back to shore to use the approaching high tide as a juncture for sunbathing. Tanning, napping and listening to music to drown out the squawking of seagulls was always a turn on at the beach. Haley made it into shore on one good wave. I wanted to take my time and enjoy in the last few moments I had in the cool, salty water before making my way in. I turned to gaze out at the horizon for a moment with one, deep, soothing breath as a shallow, rolling wave picked me up. I was more than willing to let it gently sweep me a couple feet across the surface. I closed my eyes, smiled, and with a turn I stepped down to start on my way in. Just one step. That was all it took. Whack! It felt like a triangle-shaped and roughly sharpened thing had just sunk into the side of my left foot. Bam! Right beneath my left big toe. All I could feel was this sharp, stinging, burning pain. It was instant. And it was growing. It wasn’t overwhelming, but the fear and shock it sent through my body was overwhelming. I had actually thought I had been bitten by a shark, because it felt just like that. A razor-sharp tooth penetrating my skin. I immediately swam as fast as I could into shore. It wasn’t funny at the time, but I swam ALL the way into shore. I wanted to make as little contact as possible with the ground, so I forced myself to swim, literally swim, in a foot of water before my chest hit the sand and I could walk onto the beach. I sat for a moment and observed the side of my foot as blood began to soak the sand beneath it. Then, the pounding pain began again as if I had just been hit again. It was like the salt water had been a liquid Band-Aid keeping the pain at bay. I half wanted to go back into the water so it could stop the pain again, but before I could even get up, Haley had rushed over to me and nearly screamed when she saw my foot. I told her not to freak out and to go get the lifeguard. When she returned, the lifeguard with her helped me up and walked me over to his tower where I sat on the steps with a bloody foot waiting for some relief. And within minutes, I was surrounded. What would have been just a few tourists and fellow locals checking in on the situation, was now the entire junior lifeguard camp oohing and awing at the sight of my foot. I was in serious pain but I tried to hold back the tears so as not to freak out the younger kids. Luckily within a couple minutes, the lifeguard returned with a water bottle to wash the mess away and wrap my foot in a large, black trash bag so as not to let anymore sand enter the wound while he took me to the first aid building back by the pier. The embarrassment at that point was almost worse than the pain itself. I was put on a small vehicle to the first aid building. Within the ten minute ride it took us to get there, I was accompanied by three other candidates who were also, so honorably, chosen to be stung by the stingrays. We were escorted into the building and asked to sit on the countertops while the lifeguards filled these large, deep, silver sinks with hot water for us to soak our feet in. The room smelled of squid and fish, and had white, tile walls and aluminum-colored flooring and countertops that gave it the appearance of an ocean-side asylum. At least there was one, extremely faded, window on the side wall to let some bright sunshine in. The sinks were filled, and as I looked at the steam rising from the water, I removed the trash bag from around my foot, blood everywhere, and dipped my foot into the steaming water. It was very hot. But better than hot, it was instantly relieving. Ahhhh. I was satisfied with leaving my poor appendage in the heated liquid as long as I could. Which would be about an hour.
“For the venom to sufficiently secrete itself and to help with the pain,” said the lifeguard, we were to sit on the cold, hard countertops for an hour. And we did.
The whole experience—after having been stung—was rather awkward. The four of us who had been stung sat in that room for a little over an hour and no one spoke to anyone else. Haley came about ten minutes after the whole ordeal began. She wasn’t allowed to ride over with me so she had to grab our stuff and walk over. Luckily along the way she ran into a few of our friends, so after she came to check and make sure I was alright, she hung out with everyone on the beach until I was allowed to leave. I would’ve been thankful for the company considering my fellow sting-ees were not in a social mood, but I’m glad she didn’t have to sit in that fishy asylum with us. It was dreadful. After that hour was up, we were able to lift our feet out of the water, wrap them in gauze and be on our way. The stinging sensation was still present, but not majorly. We were told it would probably last a couple days and then go away, which it did, but I vowed never to step on a stingray again. Of course, I can’t help nature from happening, and surprisingly, I was back in the water the following week. Oh well. It was a small price to pay for being able to enjoy in the ocean as often as I wanted to, and, it made for one heck of an epic story to share with my classmates when the school year started up again. Getting stung by a stingray is an awesome story to be able to have in the archives of ones life’s experiences. Though, I certainly do not wish that stinging pain, nor the giant bunion-looking bump it still, years later, has left as a visual memory. The ocean is still my second home and I love it, but now I know, that all it takes is just one step.
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I remember my first trip to the ocean. And the fear of the sting. This was an enjoyable read, Brittany. It was vivid~I could see, feel, and even taste. And giggled too. It reminded me of my dog bite.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! The ocean can be a terrifying place sometimes, but the smell of salt in the air always keeps me coming back. And I’m sorry you experienced a dog bite. That sounds much worse than what I went through. Hope it was able to be fully healed!