By akademiotoelektronik, 31/03/2022

Drownings: The CRS warn of the danger of on-board waves on the Atlantic coast, even in winter

The danger relating to on-board waves on the Atlantic coast does not only occur in summer. Last Friday, a 62-year-old woman died after being carried away two days earlier by a wave, in Labenne in the Landes.

Five people from the same family from the Landes and Pyrénées-Atlantiques were walking on February 24 on the northern part of Labenne beach, on the very steep shore, at high tide. Suddenly, a strong wave took the whole group, which found itself in the water. Four people made it back to shore on their own, but the fifth, a 62-year-old woman, had to be brought to shore by the intervention of walkers. She was then in cardio-respiratory arrest, and her husband immediately gave her cardiac massage. She was then rushed to the Bayonne hospital center (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), where she died the following Friday.

A child and a couple sucked up by the ocean in 2020

Contacted by 20 Minutes, the captain of the CRS Sud-Ouest zonal directorate, Pascal Gensous, in charge, among other things, of managing the season for lifeguard swimmers, explains that this beach in Labenne is "known to be a beach of waves on the edge , also known as shore-break. » « Its particularity is also to have a very steep shoreline, and at high tide the waves come crashing against this steep part of the sand. Unfortunately, people walk along the edge of the shore, even on the slope, without imagining that a wave could arrive and carry them out to sea. »

The phenomenon had already claimed the life in May 2020 of a seven-year-old child, then in June of an elderly couple, "sucked up" in the same way by waves on the beach of Ondres (Landes). “It's all the more dangerous that people get caught by surprise, insists Pascal Gensous, and in addition in winter we wear warm clothes which, once soaked, represent an additional weight. »

"In winter, the phenomenon concerns walkers who stroll along the edge of the ocean"

Pascal Gensous specifies that if the shorebreak phenomenon is as much winter as summer, “the framework is nevertheless different. “In summer, the danger is to be tackled by extremely violent waves when you are in the water, it happened in 2019 on Porge beach with a Dutch tourist who ended up quadriplegic. In winter, the phenomenon concerns walkers who walk along the edge of the ocean and who, on this type of beach, do not imagine that the wave can be fatal. »

The CRS insist on “keeping a safe distance from the sloping shore so as not to be caught by a wave” and always prefer to walk on dry sand.

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