While Jaws made a generation afraid to get in the water, the statistics show the sand is the real danger on the beach.
That’s what Stephen P. Leatherman, a coastal science researcher out of Florida International University says. He points to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, which suggests that digging deep holes in sand for fun is more frequently deadly than shark attacks.
In fact, since 1985, at least 20 children and young adults in the country have died as a result of it.
“Rescuing someone from a collapsed sand hole is very difficult because sand is both heavy and unstable,” Leatherman states.
“As rescuers scoop away sand to free the victim, the hole will continue to collapse under the rescuers’ weight and refill with sand. Rescuers have only about three to five minutes to save a person who is trapped in a sand hole before they suffocate.
Unlike avalanche victims, who have survived by making an air pocket, sand’s weight and other properties make that impossible.
He explains that while digging holes is fine, experts say never dig a hole deeper than two feet, or “deeper than the knee height of the shortest person in your group” to avoid catastrophe.