Durban North youngster severely hurt on beach
10-year-old had to be rushed to hospital after glass pierced his knee while playing on Beachwood Beach.
A VISIT to the beach turned into a nightmare for a Durban North youngster after he was severely cut with broken glass bottles buried in the sand. The jagged glass cut so deep that it tore through Nathan Askew’s tissue in his knee, cutting all the way to the bone. The incident has also highlighted the devastating effects of litter, particularly of discarded glass bottles on Durban North beaches.
His mother, Tracy, said her family had gone to Beachwood Beach for a walk after Nathan’s rugby prize-giving ceremony.
“Everything happened so fast, Nathan got out of the car and jumped on to the sand and I just remember hearing a piercing scream. At the time, there were a lot of fishermen around and I thought Nathan had stepped on a hook. But when we got closer, we saw a circle of broken bottles, almost in a circle, jagged and buried in the sand. The one that cut my son was a Castle Lite bottle. I knew it was serious when we saw the blood and you could see the cut had gone all the way to the bone,” she said.
Nathan spent three hours in the emergency room, where doctors had to stitch up the wound. He was also given a tetanus jab and prescribed antibiotics.
“I’m glad Nathan wasn’t seriously injured, but I wouldn’t want any other family to go through something like this. My hope is that the by-laws are enforced more strictly, and glass bottles be banned from beaches. People just need to take responsibility for their litter. I want my family to be able to go to the beach and feel safe,” she said.
Nathan, who is a huge football fan, will now miss the start of his team’s season because of the injury and echoed his mom’s sentiments.
“I’d love to see clean beaches and soft sand. It’s not a nice experience for anyone to go through,” he said.
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE
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