Someone Call Spielberg...

...there's another menace on the beach.

Jellyfish stings as many as 150 at N.H. beach

A large dead jellyfish wreaked havoc on a New Hampshire beach yesterday, stinging as many as 150 people, most of them children, and sending five to the hospital, fire officials said.

Panic ensued at Wallis Sands State Park in Rye, where emergency officials were called at about 1:30 p.m. and told that anywhere from 125 to 150 people had been stung, Lieutenant Charles Gallant of the Rye Fire Department said.

"Panic" over a jellyfish? We don't tend to have the real nasty ones here, but it still hurts like a really bad bee sting. There were children's summer camp groups there, and apparently when emergency crews arrived there were crying kids everywhere. Certainly a lousy end to a fun-filled day at the beach, that's for sure.

It does get you to thinking, though, about the importance of being prepared. Knowing what to do in such cases - as well as keeping your head when all goes pear-shaped - is the key to minimizing the trauma to all involved. Getting the kids out of the water in an orderly fashion, treating the wounds of those most severely injured, and calming down the rest of the group is the order of the day; it would be interesting to know what procedures each group had in place for a large-scale incident.

There's a reason the Boy Scouts motto is "Be prepared"...

That is all.