Girl buried alive while digging sand hole in Florida, brother injured

A young girl has died after a large sand hole she was digging with her brother collapsed on both of them at a South Florida beach on Tuesday, authorities said.

The girl, believed to be around 7 years old, was playfully digging the hole at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea with the boy, 8, when tragedy struck and the sand caved in on them. Lauderdale-by-the-Sea is a town in Broward County about 33 miles north of Miami.

Emergency crews responded to the scene at around 3 p.m. to find the boy buried up his chest in the sand, said Sandra King, a spokesperson for Pompano Beach Fire Rescue.

Investigators on the beach in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Fla., take photos of the scene of a sand collapse on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. A young girl has died after a large sand hole she was digging with her brother collapsed on both of them at a south Florida beach on Tuesday, authorities said. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

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The girl, about 7 years old, was completely buried underneath the boy, with the hole being 5 or 6 feet deep when the collapse happened, King told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

A frantic video obtained by CBS News Miami shows good Samaritans on the beach desperately trying to dig the kids out of the hole. They were trying to hold on to the walls of the hole, so it would not collapse further.

Rescuers used support boards to keep more sand from collapsing in as they used shovels to dig the children out, King said. It is unclear how long they were buried in the sand before being pulled out. 

A pail rests next to caution tape on a beach in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Fla., on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. A young girl was buried in sand and died Tuesday when a deep hole she was digging with a little boy collapsed on them both at a south Florida beach, authorities said.  (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

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"It was an unfathomable accident," King told the Miami Herald.

King said that the girl had stopped breathing by the time rescuers reached her and the young siblings were rushed to Broward Health Medical Center.

The girl was pronounced dead on arrival while the boy was hospitalized in stable condition.

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea is a town in Broward County about 33 miles north of Miami. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images))

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Aerial images of the aftermath of the scene showed the sand hole surrounded by cones and police yellow tape.

The identities of the boy and the girl have not yet been released. 

It wasn’t immediately known whether an adult was helping the children dig the hole.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.