'Stay vigilant': Man's horrific find on beach popular with families
A man has made a disturbing find during a visit to a popular family beach with his three sons.
He was at Clarkes Beach in Byron Bay, on the north coast of NSW on Tuesday when something on the ground caught his attention.
It was a small syringe with blackened innards, a broken nozzle and fortunately a missing needle.
“Stay vigilant people. Latest find on Clarkes Beach today. So disappointing. Lucky no needle attached,” the man wrote in a post to a local Facebook group.
According to people who left comments to the post, he wasn’t the only person to recently discover a needle in the area.
“The man that works at the pool found one in the kids pool it's a disgrace,” one woman wrote.
She said on Sunday morning the pool was closed while the cleaner dealt with the issue, writing “thank god he found it before the kids came in”.
“It is very disturbing. My son loves the pool, up their most days in summer, (we’re) just so lucky the lifeguard found it first,” she added.
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The man said he had no choice but to collect the “disgusting” item with his hands and dispose of it, as he had nothing else to pick it up with at the time.
Some were quick to blame the needles on “zombie junkies”, while others said the needle could have washed up from the ocean, or fallen from the bag of someone with a medical reliance on insulin.
“The ferals hanging in that car park and sitting on that wall near the pool have to go,” one argued.
“They are zombie junkies turning one of the most beautiful parts of town into a ghetto,” the same person wrote in another comment.
Someone else said it wasn’t just illegal drug users that required the use of syringes, as “hormone treatments and some pain and arthritis treatments can be done via needles”.
Another person said they were “appalled” at comments from social media users who assumed the worst of people living locally.
“I’d say it washed down from floodwaters and someone just happened to pick it up,” they wrote.
Yahoo News Australia has contacted Byron Bay Shire Council for comment on the issue.
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