A 16-year-old girl who was buried up to her neck when a sand hole collapsed at a San Diego beach Tuesday afternoon was rescued after a 30-minute effort. Fox5 San Diego reports that after the six-foot sand hole at Mission Beach collapsed, the teen's friends were unable to free her. Lifeguards came to the scene, as did beachgoers eager to help. "We saw that she was buried up to her neck, we could only see her head and her arms sticking out" as the tide moved in, said Lt. Jacob Magness of the San Diego Lifeguards.
Beachgoer Richard Mastan, who assisted in the effort, had this to say: "Since I already had a shovel in my hand, they could see 'don't bother that guy, just let him keep digging,' so I was just digging like crazy. I was so scared for her because she was way down there." NBC San Diego reports paramedics assessed the teen and released her. Local 10 reports that a 2007 study and news reports have found three to five children tend to die each year due to a collapsed sand hole; it cites the cases of three teens who have died since 2022.
The parents of a 7-year-old girl who died after being buried in a collapsed hole on a Florida beach in February have started "Sandcastles For Sloan," a campaign that urges people to build sand castles, not dig beach holes. Sky News reports the campaign warns beachgoers that "sand holes can collapse quickly" and it's best to "avoid digging deeper than knee height of the shortest person in your group." (More sand stories.)
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