Bystander helps rescue boy, 3, buried under sand in Newport Beach

A quick-thinking bystander helped rescue a 3-year-old boy Saturday who had become buried in the sand in Newport Beach.

Newport Beach lifeguard Chief Rob Williams said the boy had been digging a roughly 3-foot hole in the sand that connected to another hole, commonly called tunneling, when the sand collapsed on top of him.

The boy’s parents reported him missing to lifeguards around 2:30 p.m. and began frantically searching the packed beach near 40th Street.

Missing children along the shore aren’t uncommon, especially on busy holiday weekends. Typically children wander down the beach away from the watchful eye of their parents. On Monday, lifeguards reunited three missing children with their parents, Williams said.

But the 3-year-old’s parents had no idea their son was trapped under the sand.

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As the parents searched, a bystander who had seen the boy tunneling along the berm line jumped in to help. The man, identified by the Orange County Register as Jesse Martin, a 35-year-old visiting from Arizona, noticed some kids playing in a hole where the boy was last seen, and he began digging.

Almost immediately, he pulled the child’s leg from under the sand.

The boy likely was buried three to five minutes, Williams estimated.

Bystanders began rendering first aid, and the child was taken to a hospital. He was conscious and breathing, Williams said.

“It was a great save,” Williams said.

The Register reported that the boy was released from the hospital Saturday night.

Sand entrapment is a danger for beachgoers of all ages, Williams said.

Lifeguards advise against tunneling or digging holes deeper than 1 foot because of the risk of becoming trapped under the sand, which can weigh several hundred pounds.

With hundreds or thousands of people on the beach on busy weekends, it’s not always easy for lifeguards to see people tunneling, Williams said.

“Digging holes is always a risk because there’s not much structure to the sand,” he said. “But once you start to tunnel, the sand is so fine that it can easily collapse with any disruption. We strongly discourage it.”

Over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, Newport Beach lifeguards made 424 rescues and 11,797 preventive actions – making contact with beachgoers to teach them about ocean safety.

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Hannah Fry, [email protected]

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN