Flying gazebo injures woman, 33, at Shoal Bay

The incident left the 33-year-old from Newcastle West needing 49 stitches to repair a 4cm hole in her forehead that nearly reached bone. Almost a fortnight after being injured, on January 7, Ms Johnson is recovering well and is urging people to make sure any furniture or shelters they use at the beach are properly anchored.

The freak turn of events came after she and a friend spent the day at Shoal Bay and climbed Mount Tomaree, when Ms Johnson suggested a quick swim before the pair called it a day.

“As I was walking out of the water, a gazebo about 20 or 30 metres away got picked up by the wind and it started doing that tumble thing down the beach,” she said.

“I didn’t see it coming and my friend yelled at me to get down or duck or something – I turned around and it hit me in the face. It took a big hole out of my head.”

The blow didn’t knock Ms Johnson out and she was lucky to escape the ordeal without a concussion.

But one of the metal legs of the portable shade structure – commonly seen at beaches and markets – narrowly missed her right eye. Her friend and some bystanders helped her up the beach and the owner of the gazebo was “really apologetic”.

“I didn’t actually know what had hit me, I just went down,” she said.

“I was just laying on the ground holding my head – I was just stunned. Then my friend ran out of the water and started dragging me up the beach, it would have looked pretty dramatic.”

Paramedics took a look at Ms Johnson and told her that, considering it was a significant wound on a visible part of her head, they would take her to see a specialist at John Hunter Hospital.

“Instead of doing a graft – because they said that would be a different skin colour and might not grow hair – they actually cut either side of my head so now it’s 9cm long, the wound, and they literally just stretched the skin and pulled it together to fill the gap,” she said.

“It’s like a lot of pressure – it’s almost like I’ve had a facelift, but not a pretty one.”

Aside from the discomfort, Ms Johnson said she was recovering well and didn’t have much pain any more.

She said her story was a good example of why people should make sure large, heavy items are secure at the beach. While the injury was severe for her, a woman in her 30s, she said the gazebo could have done more damage if it had hit a child or elderly person.

“If it had hit an old person, who knows what would have happened. Or even a child, it would have been a lot worse.”