Sand holes are another beach risk
They can collapse quickly, doctors say, leaving no trace of the holes or the victims.
ATLANTA - Waves and sharks aren't the only dangers at the beach. More than two dozen young people have been killed over the last decade when sand holes collapsed on them, report father-and-son doctors who have made warning of the risk their personal campaign.
Since 1985, at least 20 children and young adults - mostly boys, average age 12 - in the United States have died in beach or backyard sand submersions. At least eight more died overseas, according to a letter from the doctors in today's New England Journal of Medicine.
Among them was Matthew Gauruder, who died from a collapse at an after-prom party in Westerly, R.I., in May 2001. The 17-year-old was playing football when he jumped for a pass and fell into an 8-foot-deep hole dug earlier.
Would-be rescuers made the problem worse by caving in more sand. He may have been buried 15 minutes.
Sand holes collapse fast, said Bradley Maron of Harvard Medical School, the report's lead author.
"Typically, victims became completely submerged in the sand when the walls of the hole unexpectedly collapsed, leaving virtually no evidence of the hole or location of the victim," wrote Maron, a resident in internal medicine.
Maron, a former lifeguard, was vacationing on Martha's Vineyard in 1998 when he and his father, Minnesota cardiologist Barry Maron, saw a lifeguard respond to a collapse that engulfed an 8-year-old.
The girl was rescued. But it left a big impression on Bradley Maron, who has spent years tracking similar incidents.
People worry plenty about splashier threats, like shark attacks. Yet the Marons' research found there were 16 sand hole or tunnel deaths in the United States between 1990 and 2006 vs. 12 fatal shark attacks for the same period.
And Bradley Maron thinks the sand-related deaths are less well-documented. He and others advise the public not to let young children play in sand unattended - and not to get in a hole deeper than your knees.
On Martha's Vineyard, lifeguards are instructed to order people out of any hole deeper than a child's waist, and to kick sand in to fill it.
Some parents protest, said Dennis Arnold, who runs Edgartown's beach patrol.
"They'll say, 'You're ruining my kid's day!' I say, 'I don't care.' "