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Digging holes in the sand at the beach seems to be a primal human instinct. But it can be VERY dangerous and I am in full support of regulations that limit hole digging to a certain depth only.
A few years ago at Newport Beach, near where I live, a small child went missing. The parents ran to the lifeguard stand and while they were telling the lifeguard what he looked like, a man nearby realized that he had seen that child playing near the edge of a large hole some kids had been digging. He rushed to the hole, fished around in the bottom, and pulled the child out from under the sand just in the nick of time. The kid was turning blue. Fortunately, he recovered fully, but a few more minutes would have been too late.
The rule now is no holes deeper than 1 foot. The last time I was at Newport, last summer, we observed some kids with shovels starting to dig a deep hole, and a lifeguard came over promptly and told them that they had to stop, and why.
We always dug in the sand at the beach, but not ten-foot holes. The kid literally dug his own grave.
I'm sorry but maybe I'm missing something obvious (and I've never done that kind of thing before), but how would you get out of a 10 foot sand hole? Wouldn't the sides cave in if you tried to climb out? It's very tragic. Very sad for the family.
Sounds like you've never been to a beach. Digging holes in the sand is something countless people, especially kids, do! Just a few ideas: dig a hole to bury yourself or someone else, just to see how deep you can go, to trap water that runs up from the surf, to make a moat around a sand castle, make a fort, a hole to lie in as shelter from a chilly wind, to shelter a bonfire, etc. Dozens of reasons. Growing up, my family spent a week or so at a beach every year. We kids dug holes all the time. So did the dozens of other families we'd see at those same beaches.
I thought the same. We spent many summer days at the beach when I was a kid. We learned from mom and dad about not digging deep holes, not burying ourselves, and any small holes we dug, we didn't leave it unattended.
We hear so much about kids dying by doing stupid things like this... things I was taught as a kid not to do by my parents.
Is this possibly the result of daycare as opposed to 24/7 parenting?
I'm sorry but maybe I'm missing something obvious (and I've never done that kind of thing before), but how would you get out of a 10 foot sand hole? Wouldn't the sides cave in if you tried to climb out? It's very tragic. Very sad for the family.
Having dug many holes in beach sand as a kid myself, its hard to imagine those kids successfully digging a vertical pit 10 foot deep in the first place. There's only so deep you can go and still be able to get the discarded sand out of the way. Sand holes tend to get narrower in diameter the deeper you go, but in order to be successful, they need to get larger.
Unless the sand was quite wet (so it tends to stick together) and fine grained, the sides would usually collapse on their own before they got that deep unless the diameter of the hole was also pretty large. As for climbing out of it, once again, if the diameter of the hole was large, the slope of the sides would be shallower, so getting out of it wouldn't be that difficult. The grain size and texture of different layers of sand on a beach isn't completely uniform.
Its possible the kids dug until they reached a layer of wetter, finer grained, or more densely packed sand deep down, and then started digging laterally forming more of a tunnel instead of a pit. Unfortunately, digging into that layer of wet sand destabilized it, partially because of the digging itself, and because it got exposed to warmth and air. Beach sand on the surface dries out much faster than sand underneath and loses its adhesion, which is why its so loose.
Last edited by Parnassia; 05-19-2022 at 03:01 PM..
I thought the same. We spent many summer days at the beach when I was a kid. We learned from mom and dad about not digging deep holes, not burying ourselves, and any small holes we dug, we didn't leave it unattended.
We hear so much about kids dying by doing stupid things like this... things I was taught as a kid not to do by my parents.
Is this possibly the result of daycare as opposed to 24/7 parenting?
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately depending on your POV, kids who make dangerous mistakes (and by extension the parents who fail to teach or keep an eye on their offspring) don't successfully create the next generation.
We always dug in the sand at the beach, but not ten-foot holes. The kid literally dug his own grave.
He was from Maine, too, where the beaches are rocky, not sandy.
There seems to be a big problem these days with digging very deep holes at the beach.
You should see the size of the "beach shovels" they sell in the tourist places...practically a full size shovel.
The beach rakers cannot rake the beach near them, turtles are getting stuck in them, people are breaking ankles after falling in them while walking, etc.
I just don't see the reason why one digs a deep hole and then walks away.
Sand castles, sure..but 3-4-5 foot holes ?
Who said they left it. Obviously they didn't since he died in it. I don't know what the law or rule is for that beach so how would I know if it's applicable there? Does anyone here live near that beach? Maybe they could let us know. Digging it that large is against the law here. So is leaving it unattended. I said I thought Jersey had similar laws but I could be wrong.
OK, but since you were commenting on a thread about a specific story, I thought your comment about leaving holes unattended was supposed to be somehow related to this story and that you thought someone had left the hole unattended.
I live near that beach, or about half an hour north of it, anyway, about six miles inland from the ocean. I don't know if there are rules about leaving holes unattended on the beach in NJ.
Sounds like you've never been to a beach. Digging holes in the sand is something countless people, especially kids, do! Just a few ideas: dig a hole to bury yourself or someone else, just to see how deep you can go, to trap water that runs up from the surf, to make a moat around a sand castle, make a fort, a hole to lie in as shelter from a chilly wind, to shelter a bonfire, etc. Dozens of reasons. Growing up, my family spent a week or so at a beach every year. We kids dug holes all the time. So did the dozens of other families we'd see at those same beaches.
Remember how exciting it was as a kid to get a new pail and shovel before going to the beach?
I thought the same. We spent many summer days at the beach when I was a kid. We learned from mom and dad about not digging deep holes, not burying ourselves, and any small holes we dug, we didn't leave it unattended.
We hear so much about kids dying by doing stupid things like this... things I was taught as a kid not to do by my parents.
Is this possibly the result of daycare as opposed to 24/7 parenting?
Or lack of knowledge about sandy beaches. Again, they were from Maine. There are a few beaches with sand, but they are mostly rock up there.
Last edited by Mightyqueen801; 05-19-2022 at 03:20 PM..
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