SAN DIEGO (WSVN) — Lifeguards and good Samaritans raced to rescue a teenage girl who got buried up to her neck in the sands of a California beach, echoing a similar incident in South Florida that claimed the life of a young girl.
It was a frantic effort by lifeguards, rangers and bystanders on a San Diego beach as they worked to free a 16-year-old girl from an eight-foot hole which had collapsed around her.
“We saw that she was buried up to her neck. We could only see the head and arms sticking out,” said Lt. Jacob Magness with San Diego Lifeguards,
The victim’s friends had been digging in an attempt to free her, with little success. They flagged down a lifeguard about 100 yards down.
“Since I already had a shovel in my hand, they could see, ‘Don’t bother that guy, just let him keep digging,’ so I was digging like crazy,” said good Samaritan Richard Mastan.
“The tide was raising, raising up,” said a bystander.
Finally, after 30 minutes of digging, rescuers and friends freed the teen.
“Everyone started cheering,” said a bystander.
“We were clapping,” said another bystander.
“Oh, everybody’s clapped, everybody’s cheering, and so it was a great thing, you know, ’cause that could have been much, much worse,” said Mastan.
Much worse, like what happened last February in South Florida.
“There is a little girl buried under the sand, and they haven’t gotten to her yet,” said a woman in a 911 call.
That girl was 7-year-old Sloan Mattingly. The Indiana visitor was digging a hole in the sand in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea with her 9-year-old brother when the sand collapsed.
“I’m standing back, my husband is off there, and a bunch of men are digging on the beach,” said the children’s mother in a 911 call.
A vacation for the Mattinglys quickly turned into a nightmare, as the children’s parents realized that both were trapped in the sand.
After some digging, the boy was rescued, but his little sister did not survive.
“The boy was about maybe three feet, maybe, down, but at that point, his head was above the sand, but I guess his sister was beside him, and she was down further,” said a witness, “and they tried digging her out, but the more they dug, the more the sand collapsed.”
In some cities like Fort Lauderdale, digging in the sand is against the rules.
“One reason is that it is unstable, it can collapse, it can be dangerous to anyone who is digging the hole,” said Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue spokesperson Alex Bagwell.
For the Mattingly family, the warnings came too late.
The teen who was rescued in San Diego is OK.
Meanwhile, since the death of Sloan Mattingly, officials in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea have discussed bringing in lifeguards, but after hearing from scores of residents who don’t think they’re necessary, and they aren’t interested in tax dollars footing the bill, commissioners last week voted against it.
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