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Has Anyone Died From Getting Stuck In Quicksand?
Where’s all of the quicksand I learned about as a child?
The image of a dashing hero slowly sinking into quicksand is one of the most pervasive from an earlier era of Hollywood. Everyone has seen a movie or television show in which someone has stumbled into quicksand and is faced with certain death unless they somehow manage to escape. Don’t struggle! Moving too much makes you sink faster. The scene is usually punctuated by a conveniently placed vine or the suspenseful wait for help to arrive. The scene was so common that one study suggests that 3% of all Hollywood productions between 1950 and 1970 included a scene where someone sinks slowly into some sort of mire.
Yet, as an adult, I’ve yet to see quicksand with my own two eyes. In fact, the dangers of quicksand seem to have been greatly overblown. Where is all of the deadly quicksand?
Is quicksand real? And if it is, is it actually dangerous?
Quicksand is real. When certain types of fine sand get wet, it creates a pool in which you can easily get stuck. Anyone who has gotten a shoe sucked off in the mud has experienced the dirt equivalent of quicksand. Quicksand can trap people unaware, and getting out can be tricky. But here’s the catch. You can’t sink into quicksand and drown.
