Man dies while tunneling on N.C. beach
June 27, 2014 - 6:35 pm
A man died on Monday afternoon when he was digging a tunnel in the sand of a North Carolina beach and it collapsed on him.
PilotOnline reported that David Frasier, 49, was tunneling between two holes about six feet deep when the tunnel collapsed. Rescue personnel pulled him from the sand and said he was unresponsive and died at the scene.
A spokeswoman for the National Park Service said it was the first time someone in the area had died of suffocation via collapsed sand in at least a decade. Nationally, similar accidents are more common, with 561 people dying from 1999 to 2010.