Locals and lifeguards save boy buried in sand
A boy buried under three feet of sand on the beach Sunday was rescued by the combined efforts of local authorities and beach-goers.
The 11-year-old Perris boy had been trapped for three to five minutes when lifeguards and roughly 20 bystanders frantically worked to dig him out, authorities said.
“The critical window is four to six minutes before irreversible brain death occurs,” said Manhattan Beach Fire Battalion Chief and Los Angeles County Lifeguard Dave Schenbaum. “He was seconds away from turning out to be a fatality.”
Lifeguards, the MBFD and the Manhattan Beach Police Department responded to a call at 6:51 p.m. of a possible entrapment near Eighth Street and the waterline.
The boy, who was visiting Manhattan Beach with a large group of friends and family, had dug two holes roughly 10 feet apart. He was trying to dig a tunnel between them when the surrounding sand collapsed and trapped him in a kneeling position with his head down.
Lifeguards were alerted by a bystander who had been told by the boy’s sister that she thought her brother was buried in the sand, according to Schenbaum.
“About 20 parents — mostly from the Eighth Street local crowd — all ran over and started digging together,” Schenbaum said. “It was an effort between the lifeguards and local South Bay parents who were down at the beach.”
After he was pulled from the sand, the boy was unconscious and not breathing, but had a pulse. Lifeguards began cardiopulmonary resuscitation breathing, assisted by a local doctor who opened the boy’s airway, according to L.A. County Lifeguard Section Chief Terry Yamamoto.
Although he remained unconscious, the boy started breathing on his own before he was transported to the trauma center at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance where paramedics left him “awake, alert and breathing on his own,” Schenbaum said.
By Monday, the boy was “awake and doing well,” according to a statement issued by MBFD.
A Los Angeles County ordinance prohibits the digging of holes and tunnels on county beaches, according to Schenbaum, since sand can easily cave in on itself.
“There is no structure to sand,” Yamamoto said. “You never know which way the sand will fall and whether there will be an air pocket or not.”
Yamamoto said that while children sometimes dig too deep, problems more often arise from horizontal, rather than vertical, digs. He said that parents should keep a close eye on children when they are digging on the beach.
“Fortunately, there were people around who helped in this situation,” said MBPD Lt. Bryan Klatt
In March, a 29-year-old Hawthorne man suffocated to death after accidentally plunging head-first into a hole in sandy soil at a construction site at Hermosa Beach’s South Park.
“I give kudos to the public,” Yamamoto said of Sunday’s incident. “They did a great job notifying the lifeguard and helping dig and pull the kid up when they found him.” ER