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AP Photo/Mark Lennihan
Sunbathers and surfers walk on Rockaway Beach in the Queens neighborhood of New York in May.
Four people walking or playing on New York City beaches have suffered puncture wounds from needles in the sand in the last three weeks, park officials said.
The most recent incident happened late Tuesday afternoon in Queens, when a lifeguard on duty at Rockaway Beach stepped on a needle at 139th Street, officials said.
The other three incidents happened within the last three weeks on Staten Island. On July 16, a 63-year-old woman stepped on a hypodermic needle on Cedar Grove Beach, cutting her foot. On July 14, a 37-year-old man was stuck in the hand by a needle while he was on the sand at South Beach, near Father Capodanno Boulevard and Sand Lane. And on July 4, a 40-year-old man was stuck by a needle at South Beach.
All three beachgoers were taken to Staten Island University Hospital North.
"You don't know where these needles come from," said Crystal Matis of Elm Park, who was at the beach Wednesday with her young daughter. "It's very scary."
The Parks Department promised last month to clean up a stretch of Rockaway Beach after NBCNewYork.com discovered medical waste, including syringes, littering the sand.
New York beachgoers say they've been pricked by dirty needles washing up on shore. WNBC's Brynn Gingras reports.
The department said Wednesday it conducts daily beach cleanings, but strict budgets only allow for so much sand maintenance.
Parks advocate Geoffrey Croft criticized that response.
"The administration needs to figure this out because that's a lot of stabbings within a couple weeks," said Croft.
Rockaway Beach is one of New York City's most popular summer destinations, and attracts families and young children each summer.
Locals believe the beach's popularity during the summer contributes to the trash -- including needles -- found along the shore.
"There's trash on the beach all the time," Karina Salvo told NBCNewYork.com last month, after the initial discovery of medical waste. "Usually Monday morning when I come down here, 8 o'clock, 7 o'clock in the morning, there's trash from one end of the beach to the other. It's disgusting."
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Leave a Comment:
People are pigs. Just go into any fast food restaurant restroom and you can see evidence of that. No one cares about anyone else but themselves anymore. There is no self restraint, no personal pride, no empathy. They should close that beach immediately until it has been cleaned up. Keeping it clean will be another problem entirely. You couldn't pay me to walk on that beach. YUCK.
And this is why we can't have nice things.
i loved the line "nobody knows where the needles are coming from." um, how about from junkies who get high at night on the un-patroled beaches?
Junkies don't use hypodermic needles.
This is clearly medical waste which has washed up onto the beach. NYC is famous for unscupulous medical waste dumping into the waters.
.
UnitedStates1776:
Junkies don't use hypodermic needles? Of course they do. How do you think they're taking drugs like heroin? To assume its medical waste is a stretch.
My favorite line was "Locals believe the beach's popularity during the summer contributes to the trash." Wow, these people must be really smart!!
1776, HAH! Hahaha I haven't had a laugh like that from these forums in days. Wow, eyes are watering. "Junkies don't use hypodermic needles." That was rich. OMG Hahaha Keep'em coming.
Hey, I have some land here in Oklahoma you might want to buy. It's got a great view of the Pacific AND the Atlantic.
I think you should sell that land to Sarah Palin. That way she can claim to see what is going on all over the US at the same time.
Hey, junkies gotta have a little quality beach time too. It's hard-ass work running down your next fix.
Not all people are pigs - just some who use NYC beaches. Have never heard of any such problems in our local beaches (SE US). Here, revenue from parking and entry fees generally are sufficient for any clean-up. Don't know whether NYC beaches have parking fees, changing room fees, fees from food vendors, etc., but clearly additional USER-GENERATED revenue is need to solve this problem. Medical waste companies (and the cruise ships who also dump trash overboard) need to be fined so much it's painful -
The real issue here is improper medical waste disposal, and ongoing problem in the NYC metropolitan area for decades. The outfits doing this dumping need to be caught, prosecuted, fined, and jailed. The hospitals and other medical service providers that fail to vet the companies they pay to dispose of this are also liable, and if any of the medical waste can be traced back to them, they should be penalized as well. But they prefer to turn a blind eye, as long as their costs are contained.
@Mymom
You are absolutely correct, this medical waste disposal issue has been going on for decades.
Sad but true, Mymom...prosecution is the key but we all know how many crimes are ignored these days.
If it were medical waste from hospitals, you would not just find needles and syringes (which are disposed of in sharp containers anyway), but also gloves, masks, i.v. lines, sutures, etc.
fewer regulations and a big tax break will fix this problem!
get off our backs, liberalbalblarghlbragl!
Frightening! Close the beach and clean it, otherwise the needles will get buried and resurface later
Legalize all drugs and everything will be just fine.
Dr,
That's exactly what the younger generations want whether it's good or bad. They just want what they want and the hell with the consequences.
the beaches in nyc really arent that clean. they could do better.
NYC is a veritable poo hole.
Pur,
Just what else do you expect when your mayor is a billionaire and can not relate to "lesser issues" (read everyday issues that concern everyday people)? Unfortunately the average person simply can not run for the office because the political system has made that option unreachable due to COST.
This is the nastiest thing I've ever read... I wouldn't step foot in that beach if you paid me.
I would not step foot in NYC if you paid me...no matter how much.
I second that, guys, and I'm from Brooklyn. Won't go back to NY. Not after 9/11.
Thanks Bob, we will hold you to that.
Some people come to you with problems, some with solutions. If the city does not have the money, what can they do? Grab a rake or quit your whining Croft.
This is not a new phenomenon. Just Google "Syringe Tide."
Billy Joel sang about this more than 20 years ago, too, with the line "hypodermics on the shores" from the song We Didn't Start the Fire.
It could be i.v. drug users, but I doubt it. Why would they trash their syringes? They'll need them again for their next fix. I would suspect this is illegally dumped medical waste, particularly since other medical wastes were also found on the beach. The economy sucks. Everyone is trying to cut costs, including health care providers. If you have pay a certain amount to properly dispose of medical waste, or you can just dump it into the ocean for free, what do you think some people are going to do? Hopefully they can trace this waste to its source. I think you'll find a corporate fat cat at the end of the line, not a junkie.
ahh this article takes me back to my youth. As ChrisMcK mentions I remember this crap happening way back when. Seemed to just magically go away then. It will again. Everyone will raise a fuss, the people dumping them will go back to being more careful and them 20 years later it will happen again....
I don't know where the needles came from, but I do know that a large population of Americans are pigs, with no regard to their fellow man or the environment. If one takes careful notice, they will see the pigs are usually cigarette smokers, who think the world is their ashtray.
Bob - you don't need to worry about whether anyone will pay you to go to NYC -- the answer to that is a loud and reverberating NEVER! That great place doesn't want you sullying it's sidewalks. Sorta like the needles strewn all over surrounding beaches...one, big Yucko!!
Now who would be dumb enough to swim at a NYC beach?
Syringes were also found on a beach up here in CT last week. Caps were on them, it sound like someone has been doing someone has been dumping at sea.
This city is a toilet and this simply proves my point. It could have happened on Manhattan or in the Hamptons, but the bottom line is that there is NO place safe from BS anymore - not even on vacation. People get stuck all the time and don't even realize it, but the simple fact is that our beaches, once prized, are now either dumping grounds or waste catchment areas.......there are no more really safe, enjoyable areas to take a family for vacation, unless you like Toga, but the plane fair is a bit excessive and even the get the occasional errant needle or shoe washed up on their shores.
"New York!!!! Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, There's nothing you can’t do" - except maybe walk on tha beach without gettin a needle in the foot.
I wonder why MSNBC chose not publish the story about the Grand Canyon sized canyon under the Antarctic ice pack, you know, the one the lunatics always say is melting because of "man-made" global warming?
Perhaps because now they have found a more scientifically irrefutable reason that doesn't mesh with their typical psycho-babble???
What a sad day it is in America when you are not safe anywhere!!!
Only 4 needle sticks in 3 weeks!?!? Things are soooo much better!
they should sue personally bloomberg for budgetary cuts!
They should personally sue Bloomberg over his budgetary cuts!
At least New Jersey drags magnets along their beaches when they're closed to collect this sort of refuse. NYC should consider cleaning their own beaches occasionally.
A magnet isn't going to pull a needle out of the sand......is it?
Very sensitive metal detectors or super strong magnets are needed to remove these things from the sand. This kind of public hazard could be a death sentence. - RC
None of you have a clue what you're commenting about.
NYC is a huge city that generates even more huge piles of solid waste. For those of you who don't know it, for decades NYC trash was piled onto barges, floated out to a certain distance from shore, then dumped....that's right, dumped into the ocean. Guess what, some of it is medical waste, and some off it comes back on currents and tides.