Woman run over by tractor, killed on Oceanside Harbor beach

A woman lying on the sand at Oceanside Harbor was killed when a large tractor ran over her Monday morning, a police spokesman said.

The victim may have been sleeping at the time, spokesman Tom Bussey said. She has not been identified.

The incident happened about 10 a.m. on the sand along North Pacific Drive, in the area by the south jetty. Bussey said a couple of lifeguards witnessed it.

The Caterpillar tractor — part of the harbor dredging efforts — was going across the sand when the driver felt a bump, Bussey said. Initially, the driver thought he’d hit a dip, but turned around to check and discovered the woman on the sand.

About 10 or 15 minutes before the woman was killed, surf instructor John Daniels spotted her talking to a city worker.

Daniels, who runs his LTR Surf instruction and rental business on that stretch of beach, said he keeps tabs on his surroundings, so he grabbed his phone and recorded the brief encounter with a woman he suspected was homeless.

The short video, shot at 9:48 a.m. shows the woman in dark clothing lying on her side, facing the ocean. Next to her is a man in a golf cart who Daniels said works for the city.

Daniels said that after that encounter, the city worker came over to Daniels’ pop-up tent near the water to greet him. According to Daniels, the city worker said he’d stopped to check on the woman and offer her water.

Daniels said he turned his attention back to his work and was talking with clients when he noticed commotion behind him. He turned and saw lifeguards laying a yellow tarp on the woman.

He said he ran to tell them that she’d been alive just moments earlier, thinking perhaps she had overdosed or suffered a medical issue.

Daniels said he was waved off and ordered to stay back. That’s when he noticed the large tractor and deduced what had happened.

“At that point, there is nothing you can do,” Daniels said.

Usually, the harbor is dredged in the spring. This is the second time this year that the harbor has been dredged, but it was necessary because areas near the jetty entrance to the harbor were as shallow as 8 feet.

Because of the pandemic, which led some of the workers to leave the job early, and storms and rough seas this year, only about 250,000 cubic yards were dredged in the spring. The goal was to remove up to 400,000 cubic yards of sand.

The sand is used to restore beaches on the south side of the city.

The president of Manson Construction Co., the company running the dredging project, issued a statement saying that he and others at the company are devastated by the incident and the woman’s death.

“We know, too, that her family and loving friends must also be devastated,” company president John Holmes said. “And to them, I want to express my sincerest and deepest sorrow that this tragedy occurred.”

He said the company doesn’t know exactly what happened or why, but is cooperating with Oceanside police in their investigation.

Oceanside City Manager Deanna Lorson said in an email that the city “expresses its condolences for the tragic death that occurred this morning.”

Lorson said the dredging company was operating under a contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Oceanside is not a party to the contract. She also said she believes the Army Corps will “conduct a full investigation and will identify appropriate measures for the future.”

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) said it was notified of the incident, but is not investigating because it did not involve injury to an employee.

There have been prior instances of people being run over on beaches along the San Diego County coast, but fatalities appear to be rare. In 1981, a 58-year-old sunbather died when a lifeguard ran over him at Black’s Beach in La Jolla.

In 1985, two people were killed shortly after midnight when they were run over while lying on a beach just north of Imperial Beach. The driver turned himself in a few hours later and was subsequently convicted of vehicular manslaughter.

The last time some one was run over on an Oceanside beach was in 2002, when a lifeguard truck ran over a 27-year-old sunbather. She survived.

And in 2011, two people were struck by lifeguard vehicles and injured in separate incidents. A 3-year-old girl was struck on the sand in Pacific Beach in June of that year. Less than a month later, a woman was struck while sunbathing at Torrey Pines State Beach.

Staff librarian Merrie Monteagudo contributed to this report.