0:31Laughter turns to fear as woman and dog sink into quicksand on South Australian beach – videoSarah was amused by the quicksand she stepped in on a South Australian beach. Then ‘reality set in’Joy turned to panic as Sarah and her dog sank quickly. She thought ‘this is not how I’m going to go’
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“I’ve literally had my real, live Indiana Jones moment,” Sarah Darbyshire says of the frightening moment she and her dog stumbled into quicksand.
The Holdfast Bay council has put up signs warning about the treacherous, liquefied patch on Glenelg North beach in South Australia.
Indiana Jones famously used his bullwhip to save himself from tricky situations, while in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull he is thrown a snake (an animal he is notoriously afraid of) to pull himself out of quicksand.
Darbyshire says she was videoing her beach walk with her maltese dog, Mr Bean, to show her daughter how the hills they had been climbing a few days previously had been flattened.
Sarah Darbyshire with her dog Mr Bean at Glenelg North beach in South Australia. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/The GuardianAt first, she was amused by the sucking sand. Then, “reality sank in”.
“I couldn’t believe how quick I went down. Pulling one leg out, you just went in deeper,” she says.
In a video, her feet and her dog can be seen sinking into the sand.
“Shit,” she says repeatedly, along with “oh my God”.
Recalling the moment, she says: “I know I meant to say ‘this is not how I’m going to go’”.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailWhile Darbyshire managed to extricate herself without a snake or a bullwhip, another woman – Madz June – needed four police officers and five firefighters to pull her out at the same spot.
She had hopped over a stream only to feel her leg to straight into the sand on the other side. It felt like her legs had been “vacuum sealed into a bag”, she told the ABC.
After 10 or 15 minutes, with the tide coming in, she called for help.
Scenes of people disappearing into quicksand were popular in movies from the 1950s to the early 2000s. Journalist Dan Engber charted the rise and fall of quicksand in films after hearing that kids these days are no longer afraid of it – unlike older people.
In a famous scene from the 1987 hit film The Princess Bride, Princess Buttercup steps on to lightning sand, and the hero Westley grabs a vine and dives in after her to pull her back out. In a heartbreaking scene in 1984 film The Neverending Story, Atreyu loses his horse Artex in the Swamp of Sadness, while in 1967 Batman and Robin needed their heel-and-toe Bat Rockets to escape the strawberry-coloured icing quicksand on top of a giant cake.
A day at the beach: ‘Quicksand had never felt real as a concept until this moment’Read moreQuicksand, a slurry of sand, water and clay, traps legs because the initial pressure forces the water out, leaving the sand and clay to compact around the legs, gripping them.
Dr Benjy Marks, a senior lecturer in civil engineering at the University of Sydney, says quicksand is common in the wake of an earthquake, but uncommon otherwise.
“If there wasn’t an earthquake, it’ll be water welling up from somewhere,” he says.
“As it goes upwards through the sand, it destabilises it.”
He says unlike in the movies, people wouldn’t get sucked right under because the sand is more dense than a human – likely only causing a person to s sink to waist depth.
The real danger would be getting stuck when the tide is coming in, which is what nearly happened to June.
On Tuesday afternoon, wild weather and a high tide saw the beach entirely covered with water.
The expert advice on getting out of quicksand is not to panic.
It’s also not to rely on nearby vines, snakes, or your bBat Rocket.
An Australian Academy of Science video confirms you won’t drown in quicksand, and advises people to get on their back and “swim” out of the pit, while an expert told Australian Geographic you should “rotate your legs in slow, small movements to reintroduce water between the sand and your legs.”
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