Officials at Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina confirmed on Saturday that a teenager from Chesapeake, Virginia, had been found dead inside a hole he had excavated in a back-dune area.
The youngster, 17, was reportedly buried alive when sand from a neighbouring dune crashed into the pit, according to a statement provided by the National Park Service. According to the agency, the place behind the dunes where he was apprehended was hidden from view.
Until approximately 2 p.m., when Seashore law enforcement rangers responded to an emergency call, the teen’s friends and family had been searching for him on their own, according to the agency. Frisco, North Carolina, a town on Hatteras Island, has a hole around a tenth of a mile east of an off-road vehicle ramp.
The agency said that rescuers from both Dare County EMS and Hatteras Island Ocean Rescue participated in the operation and performed CPR. The cause of death was still being investigated.
No one from the National Park Service was available right away to answer questions about the probe.
Located on the Atlantic coast of North Carolina, Cape Hatteras National Seashore encompasses more than 70 miles of barrier islands from Bodie Island to Ocracoke Island. According to the National Park Service, this park was the first of its kind to be created in the United States in 1937 for the express goal of conservation.
Cape Hatteras is a popular tourist destination due to its dynamic scenery, which includes a variety of ecosystems such as beaches, dunes, grasslands, shrub thickets, maritime forests, and salt marshes.
Injuries and even fatalities have occurred in various dunes and sandy areas around the nation due to sand collapses.
The Martin County Sheriff’s Office said that a 35-year-old man died in August after being buried by sand while filming a sunrise on Hutchinson Island in Florida. A Utah boy died at the southwestern Utah state park of Coral Pink Sand Dunes last year after being buried while building a tunnel, according to a statement released by Utah State Parks.
