A 17-year-old out on a beach day with friends and family died Saturday afternoon after he became trapped “under several feet of sand,” the U.S.
National Park Service said. Police received a 911 call at around 2 p.m. local time about a teenager trapped in a hole at Cape Hatteras National Seashore in Frisco, N.C.
The hole had been dug beside a sand dune in a back area of the seashore, not visible from the beach. It’s unclear if the 17-year-old boy had dug the hole himself or found it and climbed in.
The friends and family of the 17-year-old went looking for him and found the teen buried in the sand after portions of the nearby sand dune collapsed and flooded the hole, the National Park Service wrote in a press release.