Harrowing footage showed desperate beachgoers using their hands to rescue a girl trapped in a sand hole on a Florida beach before she died on Tuesday.
The girl, believed to be between 5 and 7 years old, was digging a hole 5 to 6 feet deep at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea beach in Fort Lauderdale when the hole caved in around 3 p.m. Tuesday. She had a 7-year-old boy with her, NBC Miami reported.
The girl was completely buried under the weight of the sand, and the boy was buried up to his chest.
Video obtained by CBS Miami showed first responders and good Samaritans digging sand out of the hole in an attempt to rescue the trapped girl.
During the desperate rescue operation, firefighters could be seen using shovels and boards to clear sand from the hole and tried to contact the girl.
“It was an unfathomable accident,” Pompano Beach Fire Rescue spokeswoman Sandra King told the Miami Herald.
King said the girl had stopped breathing by the time rescuers arrived.
Paramedics attempted to resuscitate her while transporting her and the boy to Broward Health Medical Center.
The girl was pronounced dead on arrival, King confirmed to the outlet.
“We performed life-saving measures to try to get her pulse back, but her heart rate did not return and she was pronounced dead at the hospital,” Dr. King said.
The boy's condition was announced to be stable.
It is unclear whether the children were local residents or tourists visiting the beach. The identity of the victim is not being released at this time due to his age.
According to NBC Miami, a witness shared video of the boy being pulled out of the sand pit and then being rushed away by paramedics.
It remains unclear how long the girl was trapped under the sand.
The children were reportedly digging a hole with several adults before the collapse.
Officials said an investigation is underway into how the fatal accident occurred.
The incident occurred about six miles from Chase Stadium, home of the professional Inter Miami CF team.
According to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine, there were 52 cases of people being buried in collapsed sand pits, resulting in 31 deaths between 1997 and 2007.
The victims ranged in age from 3 to 21 years old.
In May 2023, a 17-year-old man died after falling into a hole he was digging at Cape Hatteras National Seashore in Frisco, North Carolina, according to the National Park Service.
The teenager, visiting from Chesapeake, Virginia, was digging a hole in the back dune area behind the main dune at the beach along the Atlantic Ocean when the sand caved in.
Officials said the boy was buried under at least several feet of sand.
In May 2022, an 18-year-old boy and his sister dug a large hole on the Jersey Shore when the sand collapsed, trapping the two brothers.
The 18-year-old boy from Maine was pronounced dead at the scene, but his injured 17-year-old sister survived.