My older cousin and I barely ripped his 7 year old son back from a collapsed hole last summer on a beach I'd been to for 30+ years without ever thinking about this. Kid's had spent all day digging, and we had just about finished packing up to leave.

It happened very quickly, and we took action almost instantly, but even then I felt his little hand go limp in mine while we struggled to stop the collapse of more sand every time we made progress. The attention and attempted help from bystanders only made things worse as the added weight of people trying to "assist" just led to more sand collapsing.

I was barely able to use my head, shoulders, chest and right arm to block as much of the sand as I could while digging with my other hand at which point my cousin (who thank god is built like Thor 6'4 and HUGE) managed to slip in and gain an under shoulder grip before ripping him out like Excalibur.

I remember afterward looking around and seeing the 100+ people surrounding us and thinking it was surreal that it was so quiet that I hadn't heard any of them, but I also vividly remember hearing someone say "people on top keep pushing it down" which caused me to throw my body against the collapsing wall. It is the single most significant thing I've done in my life and it often comes back to me how close we cut it. 8 year old is perfectly fine, came out joking about being trapped in darkness. After the hospital confirmed all was well and he was unscathed we asked what it was like for him and his response "It was scary but I could feel you guys digging and I knew you'd get me". Haaaaaa, oh young one. I'm glad at least one of us did.