It was the day the sea turned red on a UK beach when over 800 holidaymakers were injured as witnesses described the event as 'like a scene from Jaws '.
On a warm Sunday in August 10, 1998 the day began with sightseers basking in the sunshine until a few hours later between 800-1,000 people were suddenly injured on Paignton Beach.
People were covered in blood and mass panic began as emergency services were called, DevonLive reported.
Police walked the seafront from Preston to Goodrington telling people to leave the water as holidaymakers began leaving the beach screaming - as blood was streaming from people's feet.
Thirty people were so badly hurt that they had to be taken to Torbay Hospital as the scene was declared a 'total emergency' by Torbay Council as ambulances rushed to the scene, reports Devon Live.
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.
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.”
Lawrence Parker, reception manager at the Inn on the Green, said: “It was chaos. The beach was packed one minute and abandoned the next.”
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, so more and more began turning up with injuries.
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 delivered 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.
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.
He said: “Police and coastguards have been making attempts to walk the beach from Broadsands to Preston.
“A lot of people are coming off the beaches. They can see that injuries are being caused, but not everybody has chosen to take our advice.
“We can’t force them to come off the beach if they don’t want to.”
Torbay Council staff – most of them trained in first aid – were working flat out to treat people limping off the sands. Mr Pearce said: “Today on this beach alone we must have treated 1,000 people – all in a matter of a couple of hours.”
Back on the beach holidaymakers and locals were making their way back to dry land.
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.”
One victim was 15-year-old Ryan Ashington, who had to go to hospital to have stitches in his left foot.
His mother Debbie said: “The tide was out and just beginning to turn when he ran into the shallows and hurt his foot.
“The cut was about an inch long and very deep and it was pouring with blood.
“I had never seen anything like it in 20 years. People were picking their kids out of the water, and some of the little ones were crying.”
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.”
Charlotte and her dad were taken to Torbay Hospital by one of the many ambulances ferrying victims from the beach.
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.”
Torbay Hospital staff spent more than two hours treating casualties with 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 as local traders quickly sold out of flip-flops and plastic ‘jelly’ shoes.
