E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSA California beach party turns deadly after 6-foot deep sand pit collapsed on a 20-year-old man who was laying inside the pit to take pictures of his friends. KNBC's Beverly White reports.
A college exchange student in California was killed Wednesday after a sand pit he dug with friends collapsed on top of him.
The 20-year-old man, whose name has not been released, was an exchange student from Seoul, South Korea at Master’s College in Santa Clara, Calif. He died of injuries suffered when a large pit that he and other students had dug caved in around him at about 4:50 p.m. at Oxnard Beach Park in Southern California, officials from the Oxnard Fire Department said in a statement.
“I think the kids were just having fun on the beach,” Oxnard Fire Battalion Chief Darwin Base told NBCLosAngeles.com. “There was a big group of them down there. They were taking pictures of each other and from what I understand the individual was laying back in the pit and taking pictures of his fellow students and that’s when it sloughed and came in on him.”
Stay informed with the latest headlines; sign up for our newsletter
Firefighters arrived to the scene at about 5 p.m. and began digging through the sand with shovels and buckets. The fire department said it took at least 15 minutes to reach the victim.
Rescue crews performed CPR on the man when he was extricated, and he was taken to Ventura County Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Witnesses said the pit in the sand was about six to eight feet deep. It was not known why it collapsed.
Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com
Base said digging holes in the sand can be extremely dangerous because the sand and surrounding soil tend to be very unstable. He said lifeguards will warn people who dig holes, but the stretch of beach where the student was buried did not have a lifeguard nearby.
In the New England Journal of Medicine, a group of doctors reported in 2007 they had assembled 52 documented cases involving people buried by sand when a hole collapsed, in which 60 percent of the incidents were fatal, the Ventura County Star reported.
There are no ordinances against digging on the beach in Oxnard.
The man’s name and hometown in Korea have not been released pending the notification of his relatives.
More content from NBCNews.com:
- Embattled tanning industry fights back, taking cues from Big Tobacco
- California school district sued over abstinence-only sex ed
- Video: Owner reunited with ring found 1,000 miles away
- 2 Good Samaritans electrocuted trying to help car crash victim
- Activist state election officers lead charge for Voter ID
- Texas mom arrested after death of baby left in back of hot SUV
Leave a Comment:
So, the hole collapses at 4:50, Rescue arrives at 5:00, Rescue digs for 15 minutes to get to the guy...4:50 to 5:00 is ten minutes...what did his friends do to rescue him in those ten minutes? Come up with a story? Ten minutes plus the fifteen minutes Rescuers dug is 25 minutes, did it take 25 minutes for more than one person to dig through six to eight feet of sand? Just askin', does this add up right to everyone but me? A person is dying beneath your feet, all your friends are only a shout away, what would you do?
How many educated dummies have to die before they learn....It's on the news ALL the time, just like leaving a child or a pet in a hot car for hours.....I am beginning to think some of this should be considered a crime for being so stupid!!!
i'm not from the coast, so i have no idea what the sand pit is and how it could kill someone...........can someone explain what that is????
Did you ever dig in a sand box as a kid? There is no lateral support to hold up walls and they continue to fall in on themselves.
On occasion, if you dig in soft WET sand, the walls will hold up for a short period. However as the moisture evaporates, and it can happen quickly in sand, the grains lose any adherence ability and it collapses. And very similar to an avalanche, it might start small but can very quickly grow in size and power.
Adding to that is the normal reaction if being buried to fight it and try to get out. Unfortunately that actually exacerbates the problem causing more sand to collapse in and speed burying the person. As the weight around the person increases, it obviously makes breathing harder and ultimately, the weight and everything else kills the person.
Not a pleasant way to die.
It collapsed because Obama has so weakened this nation that even our sand is worthless now!!! Whats next???? Water thats not wet???
As if a lifeguard would have helped. Unless he had a backhoe running at his stand.
Another Darwin candidate
he went out "GANGNAM STYLE".......GANGNAM STYLE
Why are Orientals so fascinated by taking pictures? Is there an evolutionary reason? Its ironic the poor kid dug his own grave. Like the college girls who got buried in coal while drinking near the train tracks, accidents happen and yet people still do unsafe things for fun. Buy hey, I'm a skier....
They did not mention in this article what type of tools they used to dig this big hole. It appears they used their hands because they could not react fast enough to dig this guy out. They also might have been under the influence of drugs and alcohol. I am surprised that this Korean kid being good in math could not figure out the weight of sand per cubic centimeter. He should have known something about sand because Korea has a lot of it if you just look at the map of Korea. Maybe our party beer drinking scholars brought this Korean kid to their level causing his demise>