Woman Lying on Beach Crushed to Death by Tractor

A woman was lying on a California beach on Monday when she was crushed to death by a tractor. The unidentified woman appeared to be sleeping on Oceanside Harbor Beach around 10am when the "very tragic accident" occurred, Oceanside Police Department Lt. Tom Bussey tells NBC San Diego. Crews were using tractors to move dredge pipes to an equipment area. Bussey says a construction worker was backing the tractor into a safety zone and didn't see the woman. "He hit a hole—what he thought was a hole—in the sand," a police spokesperson adds, per People. "He turned the tractor around and came back and looked and he had accidentally ran over a female who was sleeping on the beach."

A surfer had previously seen the fully-clothed woman in her 40s or 50s leaning against a wall as if she was about to pass out. He asked someone to check on her and "she seemed to say, 'I'm okay.'" The woman, who did not have identification, had been lying on the beach for at least an hour before she was run over. The rep notes she may have been a transient. "All of us are devastated," says John Holmes, president of Manson Construction, the company behind the project. "We know, too, that her family and loving friends must also be devastated. And to them, I want to express my sincerest and deepest sorrow that this tragedy occurred." The tractor reportedly weighed more than 50,000 pounds. (More fatal accident stories.)