Health Sand More Deadly Than Sharks

[XXXconanXXX]

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- 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, Rhode Island, 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 kills more than sharks, doctors warn

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Fossil]

People should bury the sand holes with sand again (does that make sense?) when they are done. Story's like this are very depressing. You could be in a beach one day, fall in a hole and it caves in on you. And there, you're most likely gonna die if someone can't get you out on time.

 

[XXXconanXXX]

Obviously, the natural enemy of the hole is the pile.

We must build one hundred piles, and the holes will run away!