#Getting stuck in quicksand how to

How to prevent getting stuck in quicksand? Quicksand is not a bottomless pit and will usually not be deeper than your waist. How to Survive a Sandstorm? Protect Yourself from the Dust! How deep is quicksand? However, you can get stuck in any of these just as easily and end up in the same trouble! The truth is, most quicksand isn’t really quicksand, but either deep mud, a bog, a mire, marsh or just spongy ground.

#Getting stuck in quicksand free

After a few failed attempts, they managed to free the man with the help of an industrial vacuum machine. Whenever he exhaled, his chest volume reduced, and the grains would fill up the gap, making it harder and harder to breathe. There’s the case of a German farmworker who fell into one of these silo’s and got stuck up till his armpits and felt like he was being sucked down. This happens in huge grain silos all over the world and may claim more lives than actual quicksand. Luckily, scientists concluded that these potential death traps are very rare, and rarely deeper than the height of a human being.Īnother similar phenomenon that’s not really quicksand but acts similarly is grain entrapment.

This crust seems solid, but can collapse, and if the space underneath it is sufficiently deep, it could be extremely dangerous. This is a crust formed by a specific type of bacteria around quiet drying bodies of water. Below are some of the stranger types.Īn odd one out is known as dry quicksand. Quicksand usually comes in varied ratios of sand, water, clay and salt, acting differently depending on how saturated it is with water, the predominant type of soil, and the surrounding climate of course. So, without help you may not drown in the actual quicksand, but your life is still in danger if you can’t reach out for help. Even if quicksand may be less dangerous than we think, Bonn states that in extreme cases, it can take the same force needed to lift a car to get your legs out of the bog. So, most people who die in quicksand die due to secondary causes, such as drowning by the tide, exposure to extreme cold or heat, dehydration, or starvation. Yet, your legs will, and you may sink down up till your waist or a bit higher. Got the idea? Since our bodies are less dense than quicksand, and equipped with internal floaties (your lungs), it’s basically impossible to be sucked in all the way. What do you think is denser? Your body or a similar sized amount of sand completely saturated with water. Maybe, unless you wear one of those 19 th century diving suits that weighs over 190 pounds. What to do when you get sucked under by quicksand? As soon as you step onto the sand, it immediately starts to liquefy, making you sink down into it. So, on the surface, quicksand looks like common sand or soil but isn’t. More specifically, it usually contains an interesting ratio of sand, water, clay, and salt, which will determine how it behaves. Quicksand is sand that is saturated by water, causing it to act like liquid. Yet, quicksand can be a cruel killer, especially in remote areas without phone signal and where help can be hours or even days away. It seems that our generation mostly associates it with these heavily exaggerated movies, and therefore don’t take it very seriously. Like me, most people never give quicksand much thought. So, lively sand, which is a lot more accurate than fast-devouring sand we remember from old or bad movies. The source of the word quick can still be found in the Dutch- and German-speaking world, where the words kwik or kwiek mean lively. For starters, it’s not that quick at all, but we’ll save that for later. But is it really as dangerous as we think? And how to survive when falling into it? Is quicksand really that quick?Ĭontrary to what you might think, the word quick in quicksand does not come from the speed with which it allegedly sucks you down into the core of the earth.

Quicksand is a mean phenomenon, occurring near bodies of water, in forests or even in deserts. What not to do when you get stuck in quicksand?.What to do when you get stuck in quicksand?.How to prevent getting stuck in quicksand?.What to do when you get sucked under by quicksand?.