Ryan Osman was trapped in cold quicksand inside a pond.
It was the end of winter and snow had started
falling.
He was alone without cell phone reception.
As the night fell upon him,
he lost hope and he started thinking of ways to
die faster.
He thought he noticed a light off in the distance.
Was it someone coming to help,
or was his mind getting the best of him?
Here's how to survive quicksand.
Quicksand can be a mixture of various substances,
including water, sand, clay, and even air.
It might look solid and sturdy on the surface,
but it quickly collapses from any pressure or vibration.
But because humans have about half the density of quicksand,
you'll only sink to around your waist.
Even if you can't get pulled all the way under,
you can still die from things like suffocation,
hypothermia, and dehydration just from being trapped in quicksand.
Today we took a look at three incredible survival stories
and examine how these survivors escaped a sandy grave.
Should you move around or stay still?
How can leaning back save your life?
And why did one survivor ask to be left alone?
There's quicksand all over the world,
but it's most common near the coastlines,
marshes, and along rivers. And it's near a river where
our first story takes place
#3 the little fisherman.
While fishing with his father in
Oklahoma's Wichita River, a 12 year old boy got stuck
in quicksand.
By the time firefighters got there,
the boy's right leg was buried to his knee,
but his father had freed his left leg.
His father and three firefighters started pulling on the boy,
but he remained trapped. They had to dig with their
hands to release the boy's leg.
But with all this movement,
the firefighters also started sinking.
They used driftwood and tree branches to make a platform
to keep everyone from being sucked in further.
Meanwhile, the boy began to suffer from hypothermia and lost
feeling in his leg.
After almost an hour, they finally freed the boy,
who escaped with mild hyperthermia.
If you think an hour is a long time to
be trapped in quicksand,
just wait until you hear about our number one story
#2A frozen miracle.
Let's go back to Ryan Osman.
He was crossing a pond in
Utah's Zion National Park with his girlfriend Jessica,
when he stepped in a tiny patch of quicksand,
which completely swallowed his leg.
They had been hiking for hours,
there was no cell reception and a Blizzard started to
form in the area.
Jessica gave him sticks to jam down beside his stuck
leg while she started scooping the sand with both her
hands,
but the hole was refilling faster than she could pull
out the sand.
After 30 minutes they were in a full on Blizzard
and that's when Ryan began thinking he wouldn't make it
out alive.
He asked Jessica to run for help,
knowing that it was his only option.
Hours passed. Ryan fell asleep a few times and the
snow kept piling on him.
Just as he was giving up hope,
he saw a flashlight and yelled for help.
It was the rescue team.
Jessica had succeeded. Two people pulled him up from underneath
his shoulders while another person dug out the mud.
His leg was so cold that it felt like a
knife was cutting into his skin every time he touched
it.
After a few minutes of extreme pain and what felt
like his leg getting ripped off,
he was finally free and saved from freezing to death.
Ryan was stuck for 12 hours as the rescue team
took 3 hours to find him.
Ryan says his mental recovery was more difficult and for
three months he'd wake up wet with sweat after having
dreams of falling in water and drowning.
Before we get to our last story,
let's go over some key takeaways that can help you
if you're ever in this situation.
In both stories, the survivors did well by keeping calm
and staying still while they waited.
Constantly moving around might have made them sink deeper and
would probably have drained their last bits of energy.
If you ever get trapped in quicksand,
remember to stay calm and take deep breaths to avoid
sinking faster.
Remove excess weight like backpacks and keep your arms above
the surface.
If you sink to waist level,
try leaning on your back.
This will distribute your weight,
allowing your feet to float on the surface.
Then carefully use your hands to paddle backward and reach
solid ground
to free your legs. Try moving them slowly,
giving time for the quicksand to fill the space underneath.
This process could take hours,
but sometimes a person cannot move at all.
This brings us to our last story
#1A clay prison.
Robbie Tizar was on a 25 day group expedition near
The Dirty Devil River in eastern Utah and needed to
cross from one bank to another.
He thought the best way to do it was to
walk across the sandy area,
but the 25 year old started sinking after a few
seconds.
His classmates struggled to free him,
but after a few hours he was waist deep in
the muddy quicksand.
He wasn't able to move at all.
The mud had thickened around his body and it was
like being trapped in concrete.
In this case, drowning was not the main threat.
Robbie could freeze to death as temperatures were around
4°C. Hours later, after the hikers activated an emergency alert
beacon,
the helicopter, lifeguard crew and rescue teams arrived to free
him.
They used rafts and shovels to dig Robbie out of
the quicksand,
finally releasing him from his prison at 1:00 AM.
He had been trapped for 13 hours.
Knowing that quicksand can be anywhere,
bring a stick the next time you go for a
hike,
especially near water. And be extra careful if you're alone.
But what could you do if,
instead of sinking to your waist,
the whole earth swallowed you?
Could you survive falling into a sinkhole?
We've got some tips for that too.