Quadriplegic Recalls Cape May Beach Accident

CAPE MAY — When David Taylor was knocked over by a wave two years ago here on the Second Avenue Beach, he felt something “snap.”
The result was he became a quadriplegic.
Taylor spoke to Cape May City Council Aug. 18 asking the city do more to prevent C-Spine (neck, cervical and back) injuries on the city’s beaches.
According to Chad DeSatnick, a former lifeguard who shattered two vertebrae in his neck eight years ago surfing at Poverty Beach, so far this summer, Cape May has had 25 C-Spine 9-1-1 calls and 47 injuries since Memorial Day.
Taylor’s accident happened Aug. 17, 2007. Taylor and his family had been coming to the city from Lansdale Pa. for 30 years.
He said the surf was relatively calm that day. He had bodysurfed a wave in towards shore and saw a much larger wave coming towards him.
At that time, Taylor weighed 250 pounds.
“I didn’t think there was a wave out there in shallow water that could knock me over, however this one did,” he said. “I soon found that my whole right side was being slammed into a wall of sand.”
“Next I found myself floating face down in shallow water and I was asking my arms and legs ‘OK, arms and legs it’s time to get me up and out of here,’ but unfortunately, I was not able to do so,” Taylor continued.
His son pulled him out of the water. Lifeguard Al Pappas placed Taylor on a board.
He was flown by helicopter to Atlantic City Medical Center Trauma Care Unit where he stayed five days. His spinal cord injury was diagnosed from C3 to the top of C7 vertebrae.
It was determined he was paralyzed from the neck down.
“There is no such thing as a minor spinal cord injury,” said Taylor. “Your spinal cord is the conduit for all feeling and all regulation of the organs in your body.”
He said he was fortunate that he did not have a “clean break,” Through surgery, his C3 through C5 vertebrae were bonded together. He recalls “lying in bed motionless unable to feel anything, waiting for some feeling to come back.”
Taylor then was moved to Moss Rehabilitation Center in Elkins Park, Pa. At that time, all he could move was his left big toe, he said. Taylor stayed there 11 weeks and was in occupational and physical therapy six days a week.
At this time, Taylor can stand and walk a short distance with a cane or walker.
The day he was injured there were no warning signs at beach entrances warning of a “dangerous shore break,” although the city was planning to post signs, he said.
Taylor sent he spent 42 years working on the railroad in hazardous conditions but never was hurt. Had their been a sign on the beach, Taylor said he would have asked a lifeguard to explain a dangerous shore break.
“I am dismayed but I’m not bitter that unfortunately little has been done over the last two years even though the incidents of spinal cord injuries have increased ever summer,” he said.
Taylor said C-Spine injuries have been occurring for more than two years and he was dismayed “that nothing definitive has been done.”
“The carnage on the beach has to stop,” he said.
He said he did not understand how all the government agencies could “sit on their hands and not take action.” Taylor said visitors to the city do not even have a pamphlet given to them warning of C-Spine injuries.
He said the city should stop passing the buck between the Army Corps of Engineers, Sen. Frank Lautenberg and legislators to do so something to decrease these injuries.
“It is basically illegal for the city to do anything to push the sand towards the ocean which would effectively allow us to flatten out the crest,” said City Manager Bruce MacLeod.
He said warning signs were installed last year and some signs have disappeared and would be replaced. MacLeod said a flyer is being prepared to cover the shore break and other beach issues, which Chad DeSatnick, who initiated the signs, had a chance to review.
DeSatnick asked if the city had communicated with Lautenberg’s office.
Mayor Edward J. Mahaney Jr. said Army Corps engineers visited the city. The mayor said the next beach replenishment is scheduled for October 2010.
He said he did not believe the Army Corps had determined another method for beach renourishment for Cape May. Mahaney said he believed the Army Corps would reply with an answer.
DeSatnick said he spoke with Dwight Pakem with the Army Corps who told him in between the two-year beach replenishments, the state Department of Environmental Protection and city can maintain the beach slope in an emergency situation.
“I believe that 47 injuries since last Memorial Day is an emergency situation,” said DeSatnick.
Mahaney said an emergency situation is when the tide came up and went through the dune.
DeSatnick said he heard of a beach-regrading project in St. Augustine, Fla. after C-Spine injuries occurred following beach replenishment. He said instead of pushing sand towards the ocean, they ran a rake perpendicular to create a natural grade. Mahaney said he would explore that possibility.
The beach warning flyers needed to be distributed to hotels, bed and breakfast inns and rental properties said DeSatnick. He reiterated that most of those suffering C-Spine injuries were from out of town.
Mahaney suggested beachtaggers hand out the beach flyers and a holder be placed on the back of lifeguard stands. DeSatnick warned that a number of people use the beach after the taggers leave the beach at 3:30 or 4 p.m. and would not receive the flyers.
Todd DeSatnick, Chad’s brother, said he did not believe Cape May made enough effort to publicize the possibility of C-Spine injuries on its beaches. He suggested a professional design the beach warning flyers.
He said the flyer covered a number of topics and the head, back and neck injury section blends together with the rest of the information.