The family of a Nampa resident is asking the community for support following his “tragic death” after a sand hole collapsed burying and killing him in California.
Dustin Hanson died over the weekend after a sand avalanche buried him in a 6-foot hole that he had dug at Samoa Power Pole Beach in northern California on Wednesday, according to a GoFundMe news release . Hanson was digging the deep hole underneath a wooden log to “create a sort of fort to watch the sunset” when the sand collapsed and trapped him, the San Francisco Chronicle reported .
When digging at a beach, experts recommend that people shouldn’t go past 2 feet — or the shortest person’s knee height — given the fact that sand can be “unstable” and “heavy” making it difficult to rescue someone if the hole collapses, according to Florida International University .
“Be very careful with sand at the beach — it’s shifty, it’s unpredictable — you really don’t know what direction it can fall,” Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Megan Ruiz told a local blog in California regarding the accident.