Is the beach at Chuburná Puerto dangerous? Some young visitors who were rescued Sunday say it is.
The sand under the water there is “unstable” and the current is “very dangerous,” according to a reporter at Diario de Yucatan, hearing the scuttlebutt from beachgoers.
“There is no sign that warns of the danger that comes when going to bathe,” says Irani Oramas, 21, one of five young people who were rescued by a tourist boat and paramedics when they were in danger of drowning.
“If the boat did not pass, we would not have survived. We could not swim, the currents formed a kind of whirlpool and dragged us,” added Oramas, who is from Merida.
Oramas said she and several friends, all in their 20s, went to Chuburna Puerto because another friend told them the water was calm.
“I had never gone before,” she said, in Spanish. “When we arrived there were many people, many families. We decided to go in because the water was calm and shallow. It covered us from the waist down. “
But soon, several friends waded into a gap in the ground and sunk, she told Diario de Yucatan.
“Although we thought they were joking, my boyfriend, me and three other friends started to return to the beach … but we fell into a kind of pit, we did not tread, and we began to drown. It was exasperating.”
The young people were rescued by a tourist boat. By then, they were vomiting and reported dizziness, fatigue and muscle pain.
Oramas says that some were unconscious and three friends were hospitalized, where they were rehydrated and released. Yucatan Ahora said they had been taken by a Red Cross ambulance to the IMSS clinic in Progreso.
She noted that no lifeguards are on patrol to protect bathers.
The crew of the boat told them that they were lucky that the crew happened to be nearby during the emergency.
“It is the fault of the authorities who do not put anything to warn that this area is very dangerous,” says Irani. “The worst thing is that there were many people, including children, and some people commented that the same thing happened to them.”
