Warn tourists about beaches

Tourists are much more likely than local residents to suffer spinal-cord injuries in Hawaiian waters, and are doing so at rising rates. There’s an obvious need to impart more local knowledge to the visitors who flock to our shores expecting fun in the sun and instead risk their lives in ocean conditions for which they are utterly unprepared.

Visitors need to know that Hawaii’s volcanic geography makes the surf here more powerful than off California or Florida, where the continental shelf slows waves down as they come ashore. Serious injuries can occur even in seemingly mild conditions, especially at beaches with the most hazardous shorebreaks.

The necessary public-awareness campaign would best begin before visitors touch down in the islands, on the jets which transport them as captive audiences.

Candid ocean-safety videos aired during flights or informational fliers handed out to passengers make the most sense, in terms of conveniently reaching the broadest audience with concise, consistent information.

Past attempts to encourage or even require airlines to be more outspoken about Hawaii’s risks raised a host of concerns, including that this responsibility should not fall solely or even primarily on the airlines; that the number of annual injuries was not high enough to warrant alerting all arriving visitors; that Hawaii’s reputation as a generally safe destination could be needlessly sullied; and that personal responsibility dictates that visitors live with the consequences of their own choices — including where they decide to go to the beach.

To the extent that tourists are makinguninformed decisions, though, the state, counties and the tourist industry — including not only the airlines but all businesses that rely on visitors — should do all they can to steer newbies away from the beaches that all but the most experienced locals wisely avoid.

According to a state Department of Health analysis, ocean activities such as bodysurfing and bodyboarding are the leading cause of spinal-cord injuries in Hawaii.

From 2009-13, 208 people suffered injuries serious enough to put them to the hospital; 78 percent were nonresidents.

Eighty-four percent of all victims were male, 64 percent of them between the ages of 45 and 70.

While all but 1 percent of the victims survived, 30 percent were left with a moderate or severe disability. And this accounts only for those injured so badly that they were admitted to the seven hospitals included in the DOH analysis.

Who knows how many more visitors get banged up in rough surf and limp back to the rental car, not permanently injured but definitely shaken up?

Several steps are needed to improve visitors’ awareness and safety, including adding more beach lifeguards, particularly on the neighbor islands, and beefing up site-specific warning signs at the most hazardous beaches.

The Kauai airport is a model, too, with no-nonsense ocean-safety videos airing at the luggage carousels, prominent as fliers wait for their bags.

But the unvarnished safety communication must start on the plane, before visitors arrive. The agricultural declaration form and survey each arriving party is asked to fill out could be updated to include a sentence or two explaining how dangerous Hawaii’s shorebreaks can be, and refer visitors to hawaiibeachsafety.com for safe-beach recommendations.

Including the site’s QR code for passengers to scan with smart phones wouldn’t take much room on the form. The information provided could save a life.

Ultimately, it is up to beachgoers to recognize nature’s force and to know their own limits. Visitors to our shores can make smarter, safer decisions when they have local knowledge at hand.