Girl dies on Florida beach after sand hole she was digging with little boy collapses

A young girl is dead after the hole she was digging on a Florida beach collapsed and buried her and another child who was helping her.

The girl, believed to be around 7 years old, had dug a 5 to 6-foot-deep hole at a beach at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea in Fort Lauderdale at around 3 p.m. Tuesday when it caved in on her and a 7-year-old boy, NBC Miami reported.

The weight of the sand completely buried the girl, while the boy was buried up to his chest.

“It was an unfathomable accident,” Pompano Beach Fire Rescue spokeswoman Sandra King told the Miami Herald.

Firefighters used shovels and boards to clear the sand away from the hole so they could reach the trapped girl during the time-sensitive rescue, King told the outlet.

King shared that the girl had stopped breathing by the time rescuers reached her.

Paramedics attempted to revive her while they rushed her and the boy to Broward Health Medical Center.

The girl was pronounced dead upon arrival, King confirmed to the outlet.

“We were conducting life-saving techniques to try to bring her pulse back, and it never did recover, and she was pronounced dead at the hospital,” King said.

The boy was listed as being in stable condition.

It’s unclear if the children were locals or tourists visiting the beach. Their identities are currently being withheld due to the victim’s ages.

A witness shared a video of the boy being rushed away by first responders after being pulled from the sand hole as others frantically worked to reach the girl, according to NBC Miami.

How long the girl was submerged under the sand remains unknown before she was pulled out.

The children had been reportedly digging the hole with some adults before it collapsed.

The investigation into how the fatal collapse happened is ongoing, officials said.

The incident happened about 4 miles away from Chase Stadium, home to the pro Inter Miami CF team.

There were 52 instances in which people became buried in holes in the sand that collapsed — with 31 people dying from 1997 to 2007, according to a New England Journal of Medicine report.

The victims ranged in age from 3 to 21 years.

A 17-year-old male died in May 2023 after a hole he was digging at Cape Hatteras National Seashore in Frisco, North Carolina, collapsed in on him, according to the National Park Service.

The teenager had been visiting from Chesapeake, Virginia, and digging the hole in a back-dune area behind the beach’s primary dune along the Atlantic Ocean when it caved in on him.

Officials said the teen had been buried under at least several feet of sand.

In May 2022, an 18-year-old boy and his sister dug a large hole on a beach at the Jersey Shore when the sand collapsed, trapping both siblings.

The 18-year-old from Maine was pronounced dead on scene, but his injured 17-year-old sister survived.