Ted Danson and Leslie Nielsen in the horror movie, "Creepshow". Clearly, Leslie is someone who knows how to deal with hollywood liberals.
Posted on 06/21/2007 8:41:24 PM PDT by lowbridge
Waves and sharks aren't the only dangers at the beach. More than two dozen young people have been killed over the last decade when sand holes collapsed on them, report father-and-son doctors who have made warning of the risk their personal campaign.
Since 1985, at least 20 children and young adults in the United States have died in beach or backyard sand submersions. And at least eight others died in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, according to a letter from the doctors published in this week's issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
Among them was Matthew Gauruder, who died from a collapse at an after-prom beach party in Westerly, R.I., in May 2001. The 17-year-old was playing football with friends when he jumped for a pass and fell backward into an eight-foot-deep hole someone had dug earlier.
Would-be rescuers made the problem worse by caving in more sand as they tried to approach him. People at the scene said he may have been buried 15 minutes, said his mother, Mavis.
"People have no conception of how dangerous this is," she said, in an interview this week.
Sand hole collapses occur horrifyingly fast, said Dr. Bradley Maron of Harvard Medical School, the report's lead author.
"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," wrote Maron, an internal medicine resident.
Maron, a former lifeguard, became interested in the topic in the summer of 1998. He was vacationing with his family on Martha's Vineyard when he and his father, Minnesota cardiologist Dr. Barry Maron, saw a lifeguard responding to a collapse that engulfed an 8-year-old girl.
The girl survived, thanks to a dramatic rescue.
(Excerpt) Read more at lasvegassun.com ...
Ted Danson and Leslie Nielsen in the horror movie, "Creepshow". Clearly, Leslie is someone who knows how to deal with hollywood liberals.
And in response the ninny-nannystaters in some NJ beach communites have passed ordinances forbidding digging in the sand.
Sand is not the hazard, it’s the Father-Son genius duos that appear to be the hazard to themselves.
Natural Laws have no pity.
Considering 100 people in the US are killed by lightning each year, I would say we are pretty safe from the threat of collapsing sand.
If someone is dumb enough to let themselves get buried in sand, them or their parents should be restricted from going to the beaches, the playgrounds, and own sand boxes for their personal dangerous use.
From personal experience, I’ve got to reply to this. When I was a sophomore at Coronado High School (CA) in 1959 my younger brother, my mother and I spent a lot of time at the beach. My father was on deployment aboard the carrier Lexington CVA-16 at that time. One day, I foolishly dug into a rise of sand at the beach, it collapsed on me when I was in beyond my waist. I could not breathe and I couldn’t move, I panicked and started ingesting sand. My mother saw my legs waving and came over and pulled me out. If she had been in the water or elsewhere down the beach I would have died; as she said, the Lord was watching over me that day.
To quote an old “lawyer” joke, that is what is known as a sand shortage.
Sand is actually pretty dangerous. It is like getting stuck in heavy, wet concrete.
Try this: go onto a fine, sandy surf beach. Wade into the surf say six inches, and stand in the sand as the surf washes over your feet.
In no time at all, you will be ankle-deep in sand: the surf washes it loose and you will sink under your own weight. Time to get out, while the getting is easy. If you wait a while you will be mid-shins-deep: getting your legs free will now be pretty difficult because the wet sand causes a suction that is difficult to break. A few seconds more and you should be in a panic because you will be up to your knees and the surf will be rolling in. Very few people can raise their foot higher than their knee straight up-and-down against resistance: which is really the only way you can now get free...
...if you’ve gone this far you are in more trouble than you might realize.
Sand is no joke. The warning is right.
Or malice.
Funny; I haven’t heard any reports about dangerous sand holes! I think sharks make for a better story...and video. (Nasty shark versus a hole in the ground? Come on, people, it’s no contest!)
Just one more thing to worry about.
“Sand shark!”
The young teen son of one of my father’s closest friends died when a hole he was digging in his backyard collapsed on him. It was a horrible tragedy. Another of my dad’s friends lost his son in a blizzard in Mass. He had gone to see his girlfriend with the blizzard raging, got snagged on a barbed wire fence and froze to death.
Many years ago, as a little squirt, I would make sand traps. Dig a hole about a foot or so deep some distance from my family. Cover it with whatever sticks look structurally sound and some seaweed, followed by a sand camouflage. Eventually some guy with a big cooler would stick a foot in the hole and dump everything out of the cooler in the process. That was Sandy Hook State Park. No harm or foul.
I should have studied genetics instead of Meteorology, it would have been a million laughs instead of a million tiny cuts leading to a job change.
them must be an awful bit dumb I say
lol - the land of the free.
come on over to germany - you may even have a cool beer (shock !) on the beach.
downside - heavy rain forecasted.
freedom is not everything.
and umm does he run for president ?
“naked cannon 2 - reloaded ;-)”
It seems silly to regulate digging in the sand, but I agree that warnings are appropriate. I also had a near miss as a youngster. We started to dig a tunnel in the sand, and part of it collapsed on me as I as digging. I didn’t get trapped, but the weight of it injured my lower back. This was when I was 12, and that part of my back has given me trouble ever since.
Senator Bill Nelson-D, FL, will jump right on this!! I will be looking for his email telling me all about his new bill.
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