Beach sand can be deadly
Categories: Places to go, Health & safety
I don't live anywhere near a beach these days, but I spent my childhood about an hour away from Galveston, Texas. I remember many happy hours spent splashing with my friends in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. When we weren't in the water, we were next to it, building castles and digging holes in the sand just for fun. There is something about sand that just begs a kid to get a shovel and make a hole.
Who knew that those holes we were digging posed a real threat to beach-goers and we are lucky to have gotten out of them alive? Seriously, according to research carried out by Dr. Bradley Maron of Harvard Medical School and his father, Minnesota cardiologist Dr. Barry Maron, you can add beach sand to your growing list of things to worry about. Or, more precisely, holes in beach sand. More than 2 dozen people have been killed in the U.S. in the last ten years when sand holes collapsed on them. Apparently, that's more deaths by sand than by sharks in the same period of time.
"Typically, victims became completely submerged in the sand when the walls of the hole unexpectedly collapsed, leaving virtually no evidence of the hole or location of the victim," says the younger Dr. Maron.
He advises parents to never let young kids play in the sand unattended and to never get into a hole that is deeper than your knees. If that advice sounds alarmist to you, it doesn't to lifeguards on Martha's Vineyard. They are trained to order children and adults out of holes that are deeper than a child's waist and to fill the holes back in with sand.
Next time you are at the beach, maybe you should give up on the tunnel to China and stick to building castles in the sand.
Who knew that those holes we were digging posed a real threat to beach-goers and we are lucky to have gotten out of them alive? Seriously, according to research carried out by Dr. Bradley Maron of Harvard Medical School and his father, Minnesota cardiologist Dr. Barry Maron, you can add beach sand to your growing list of things to worry about. Or, more precisely, holes in beach sand. More than 2 dozen people have been killed in the U.S. in the last ten years when sand holes collapsed on them. Apparently, that's more deaths by sand than by sharks in the same period of time.
"Typically, victims became completely submerged in the sand when the walls of the hole unexpectedly collapsed, leaving virtually no evidence of the hole or location of the victim," says the younger Dr. Maron.
He advises parents to never let young kids play in the sand unattended and to never get into a hole that is deeper than your knees. If that advice sounds alarmist to you, it doesn't to lifeguards on Martha's Vineyard. They are trained to order children and adults out of holes that are deeper than a child's waist and to fill the holes back in with sand.
Next time you are at the beach, maybe you should give up on the tunnel to China and stick to building castles in the sand.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
AB 6-24-2007 @ 11:50AM
Don't you think this is just a wee bit alarmist? These numbers work out to a risk of less than 1 in 100 million per year of death by sand. It seems like it's more of an indication that people worry too much about sharks.
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LS 6-24-2007 @ 12:24PM
Well, my first response to this story was, "well, duh!!", but then I realized that lots of people haven't dealt with sand and a hole that deep.... sand shifts, and quickly. That hole may look pretty solid, but it's not. Try digging a knee-deep hole - looks good - but now dig something in the wall of the hole. Sand starts to dribble, or perhaps cascade down. Now imagine you're a kid in that hole, with the sand neck-deep. Even if your head is above the rim, you won't be able to breathe if that hole collapses, since as you breathe out, the sand fills in the space.....
This is why construction workers are constantly bracing the walls of the holes they dig with boards and such.
Alarmist? Maybe. But how hard is it to say to a kid, "Ok, we've dug deep enough, now let's fill it in and start again!!" The fun is in the digging, anyway.
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Ann Adams 6-24-2007 @ 1:05PM
Statistics become meaningless when it's your child.
While I agree that we've become overprotective sometimes to the point that our kids can't be kids, it's very simple to tell them to fill up the hole and dig another.
Hi LS. Haven't seen you in a while.
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Uly 6-24-2007 @ 3:45PM
Much too much about sharks, AB. Meanwhile, some 95 people every year, in the US, die from lightning strikes. Yes, you are literally more likely to be struck by lightning than fall in a hole and die.
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Ann Adams 6-24-2007 @ 4:24PM
True, Uly, but I bring the kids in during a thunderstorm and keep them away from water and electrical appliances.
On the other hand, a little dirt and a skinned knee never hurt anyone. I try to find a middle ground.
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Belinda 6-24-2007 @ 9:43PM
Maybe it was just my family, we never wanted to dig in the sand at the beach!! We got in the water.
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Heather 6-25-2007 @ 9:24AM
This very thing happened on Block Island, Rhode Island a few years ago. A dad dug a hole for his 6 year old, which collasped inward and the child died before the crowd could dig him out.
It is a preventable accident. OSHA has rules governing depth and trench support in order to protect on the job hazards so it isn't alarmist to warn of the dangers.
The average person likely does not know enough about excavation to make a determination on just how deep is safe.
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Denzylle 6-25-2007 @ 10:40AM
A child in the UK died in such circumstances a couple of years ago:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/4155194.stm
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N. Suga 6-25-2007 @ 1:02PM
This happened to me! I was walking along the beach, heading toward the water, and whoosh! suddenly I sucked down hip deep into murky, sandy water. It's like quicksand, and it happened so fast I couldn't stop. If I was a child, it would've been chest high for sure. Very scary, but I would say that the danger is more where the water meets (or rushes up to) the beach, rather than the drier area upland.
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