Study Reveals ‘Frightening’ Surf-Diving Accident Rate

Dives into shallow surf along the Southern California coast have killed three people and injured at least 122 others since 1976, a study by the University of Southern California has found.

The study, prompted by a rash of crippling injuries and multimillion-dollar lawsuits in 1984 and 1985, found that 41 victims were paralyzed or suffered other serious injuries over an 11-year period by “plunging dives” into the surf from shallow water at 20 beaches between San Diego and Santa Barbara.

Typically, surf-diving victims were 21-year-old men injured on Orange County beaches. The injuries often came when beachgoers sprinted into the water, plunged into the swells, then slammed their heads into solid ridges of sand below the water’s surface.

First Comprehensive Study

That profile of youthful victims--fooled about water depth by the murky and churning surf and unaware of the ocean’s shifting sands--emerges from the first comprehensive study to be published about surf-diving accidents on beaches throughout the region.

“These are really very frightening statistics,” said Ted Reed, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors, which joined state and federal agencies in sponsoring the $114,000 study by USC’s Sea Grant Program.

“You hear about this in the isolated case. I knew that it was happening. But until you see it in black and white, you don’t realize that it’s a very, very serious situation,” Reed said.

Eighty-five of the 125 surf-diving accidents occurred on six Orange County beaches, including 40 at Newport Beach and 17 on the two public strands at Huntington Beach, the two-year study reports.

Beach Accident Rates

In Los Angeles County, Venice Beach had 10 accidents and the smaller Manhattan and Hermosa beaches had four each, the study says.

In addition to the 3 surf-diving deaths, 9 victims are quadriplegic, 14 paraplegic, 12 others had spinal injuries or surgery and 6 were treated for serious nonspinal injuries. Forty-five reported injuries were not serious and the nature of 36 others is unknown, according to the researchers, who gathered their information from accident reports filed with agencies that oversee beach activities.

“What if there had been a new drug on the market and there had been 40 cases of paralysis? That drug would have been taken off the market,” said USC geological sciences professor Robert H. Osborne, editor of the study. And Osborne said the number of diving accidents is much higher than documented in his report because he studied only plunging surf dives, not dives from piers, boats and surfboards.

‘Potential Hazard’

Although a second phase of the study next year will recommend how Los Angeles County should respond to surf-diving injuries, Osborne said he is already convinced that “the severity of the problem demands that we educate the public about the potential hazard.”

“I think we have to build some kind of program into the junior high and high schools,” he said.

Many cities and counties warn of beach hazards, such as sand bars and riptides, only through signs. Los Angeles County has posted signs on beaches since 1981. Newport Beach, hit with a series of lawsuits and a much-publicized, $6-million judgment in 1984, is the “most intensively signed” beach of those studied by USC, the report says.

Reed said Los Angeles County may strengthen its warning program by producing a videotape about a variety of beach-diving dangers to be shown in schools, as have the City of Newport Beach and some private hospitals that care for spinal-injury patients.

David B. Casselman, a Tarzana attorney who wrote part of the study, said government agencies should be doing much more than placing signs on beaches.

‘Classic Case’

“Posting of signs has never proven to be effective. The group of people who tend to be injured, young adult males, are almost resistant to signs. . . . The classic case was in Los Angeles County in the 1940s. The director of beaches tried a riptide warning, and the people would go right down to the water, throw their towels over the sign, go in the water and drown,” said Casselman, who represents Los Angeles County and Newport Beach in several surf-diving liability cases.

Even the posting of danger signs has become a matter of legal controversy in recent years. Some cities and counties, reacting to court decisions, have chosen not to post signs, fearing that it is tantamount to admitting liability for beachgoers’ injuries.

Though the study was designed to clarify such legal issues, a state law passed last month changed the rules. It restored much of the immunity government had enjoyed from liability for deaths or injuries on undeveloped public land.

The law was a response to a 1982 state appellate court ruling that the city of San Diego had altered the “natural condition” of a beach by providing lifeguards, and thereby lost its long-established immunity from liability for injury on undeveloped land.

Dozens of Lawsuits

The $6-million Newport Beach case, involving a Claremont man paralyzed after diving into the surf near Balboa Pier, upheld the same principle and spawned dozens of lawsuits up and down the coast.

Los Angeles County faces 16 damage claims stemming from beach accidents, including four for surf-diving injuries, county officials said. It has not lost a surf-diving case.

Because the surf dives have been the focus of many lawsuits, Osborne said, he and his USC colleagues studied them exclusively. Not included in the study, he said, were hundreds of accidents that occur at Southland beaches each year when people dive from docks, boats, rocks and jetties. Injuries caused by boogie-boarding, body-surfing and surfing were also excluded.

Missing Statistics

Nor do the statistics include surf-diving accidents at city-run beaches in Del Mar, Seal Beach and Long Beach, which chose not to participate in the study. Data provided by Santa Barbara and Oceanside and Camp Pendleton was also excluded because it was incomplete, the study said. Ventura County agreed to participate but data was never made available, it said.

All 20 beaches patrolled by Los Angeles County lifeguards were studied, but only 10 had reported surf-diving injuries. Several state-run beaches in Los Angeles County, such as Leo Carrillo State Beach, were also not discussed in the report because they had no such injuries.

The study found that Orange County’s south-facing beaches, especially Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, were most prone to surf-diving injuries partly because ocean swells often come from the southwest during July and August, when beaches are used most. Those swells build sand bars that are hidden by the cloudy surf along that county’s unusually sandy and heavily used beaches, the report says.

Different Measures

Newport Beach’s 40 accidents were not only the most for any beach studied, but it also had the highest rate of accidents per mile of beach. Huntington Beach’s accident rate was second by that measure, Venice Beach’s rate was third and Huntington State Beach’s rate was fourth.

When the number of visitors was considered in a formula to determine the beach where people are most likely to have surf-diving accidents, Huntington Beach was first.

Newport has averaged 10.7 million visitors annually, second among the 20 beaches surveyed, contrasted with Huntington Beach’s 5.8 million.

Santa Monica Beach, which faces west, has had about 21 million visitors a year but only two surf-diving accidents in nine years, according to the study.

Of the 125 surf-diving victims, whose average age was 20.7 years, 107 were men. Most injured divers lived within 20 miles of the beach; the 10 victims at Venice Beach, for instance, lived an average of eight miles away.

But several Orange County beaches did not follow that pattern, with victims at Huntington Beach living an average of 16 miles away, Newport Beach 19 miles away and Huntington State Beach 21 miles away, the study says. That could be “a contributing factor in the relatively high accident rates” at those beaches, it concludes without further explanation.

Accidents averaged 11 a year during the 11-year survey period, peaking in 1984 with 21 then falling to 17 in 1985 and seven in 1986, a year of chilly summer weather and low beach attendance.

THE DANGERS OF SURF-DIVING A new study documents 125 accidents at 20 Southern California beaches since 1976 when beachgoers dove from shallow water into the surf, hitting sand bars, the ocean floor or other obstacles. A look at some of the local beaches:

Accidents Beach Annual Number of Per Mile Length Attendance Beach Accidents Each Year (in miles) (in millions) Newport Beach 40 0.60 6.1 5.79 Laguna Beach 11 0.19 6.0 -- Venice Beach 10 0.40 2.8 -- Bolsa Chica Beach 10 0.18 5.2 3.55 Huntington Beach 9 0.46 1.8 5.79 Huntington (state) 8 0.35 2.1 -- San Clemente 7 0.32 2.0 -- Hermosa Beach 4 0.27 1.7 6.06 Manhattan Beach 4 0.22 2.1 4.08 City of San Diego 3 0.12 17.0 -- Corral Beach 2 0.32 0.7 -- Redondo Beach 2 0.13 1.7 4.42 San Buenaventura 2 0.08 2.2 1.54 Santa Monica 2 0.08 2.9 20.76 Zuma Beach 2 0.13 1.8 7.79 Dockweiler Beach 1 0.03 3.7 3.14 Manhattan (state) 1 0.04 2.1 -- Moonlight Beach 1 0.31 0.3 1.03 Topanga Beach 1 0.10 1.1 6.93 Will Rogers 1 0.03 3.2 5.27