Young girl dies after deep 6ft hole she was digging in sand collapses on her at South Florida beach
21 February 2024, 15:35 | Updated: 21 February 2024, 15:43
A young girl has died after she was buried beneath the sand on a South Florida beach when a 6ft hole she was digging collapsed on top of her.
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The girl, thought to be aged seven, had been digging with an eight-year-old boy when they were both submerged beneath the sand after the hole caved in on them both.
Beachgoers scrambled to rescue the two children amid the tragic incident, before emergency services arrived at the scene, according to reports.
Crews arrived at around 3pm at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, around 33 miles north of Miami, where they found the boy buried up to his chest and the girl entirely submerged beneath the sand.
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“You saw grown men digging with shovels and buckets and nobody could find her,” local Florida news reported.
The hole was around 6ft (1.8 metres), Sandra King, a spokesperson for Pompano Beach Fire Rescue, said.
Rescuers used support boards to prevent the sand from collapsing into the hole any further, as well as shovels to dig the children out.
King said the girl had no pulse when rescuers pulled her body from the deep hole. It was an “unfathomable accident”, she added.
“We were conducting life-saving techniques to try to bring her pulse back, and it never did recover and she was pronounced dead at the hospital.”
The boy, meanwhile, was taken to Broward Health Medical Center where he revived medical attention.
He remains hospitalised but is in a stable condition.
It is not currently known if an adult had helped the children dig the hole.
