Shane Su­perville 

A beach out­ing in To­co turned vi­o­lent on Mon­day af­ter an ar­gu­ment over wa­ter safe­ty end­ed with a man be­ing struck in the head by a life­guard.

Po­lice said the 34-year-old man was at Saly­bia Beach with rel­a­tives and friends around 3.45 pm when he got in­to a heat­ed ex­change with the life­guard over the pres­ence of chil­dren too close to the wa­ter be­tween the flags.

The ar­gu­ment es­ca­lat­ed and the life­guard al­leged­ly picked up a met­al flag­pole and hit the man on the left side of his head. The blow caused the man to col­lapse and lose con­scious­ness.

He was tak­en to the To­co Health Fa­cil­i­ty and lat­er trans­ferred to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal, where he re­mained up to Tues­day morn­ing.

Po­lice said the life­guard was tak­en in­to cus­tody and state­ments were col­lect­ed from sev­er­al wit­ness­es. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said it was like­ly that the man in­volved may al­so be charged.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.