What should have been an idyllic day at the beach quickly turned into a harrowing ordeal for Jamie Acord. As she strolled along the sandy shores of Popham Beach State Park in Phippsburg, Maine, she found herself suddenly and inexplicably sinking into the ground, trapped in a treacherous patch of quicksand.
“Literally it was kind of like I just dropped into a manhole cover,” Acord recounts, her voice still tinged with disbelief. “We’re walking along, just talking, and all of a sudden I went into the sand.”
The Terrifying Plunge
In a matter of seconds, Acord found herself waist-deep in the saturated sand, her struggles to free herself proving futile. “I can’t get out,” she recalled telling her husband, panic setting in as the sand seemed to swallow her whole.
“I just dropped like a rock,” she later told NBC affiliate WCSH. “I was there and then the next minute I wasn’t.”
A Narrow Escape
Fortunately, Acord’s husband acted quickly, pulling her out of the quicksand’s grasp. Aside from a few scrapes from the abrasive sand, she emerged unscathed, though shaken by the unexpected ordeal.
“It was kind of one of those moments where I didn’t know what to do. This is a new thing that’s never happened before,” Acord confesses. “And I go to that beach all the time.”
A Bizarre Phenomenon
Even after her harrowing escape, the incident left Acord and her husband perplexed. “And as soon as he pulled me out, we turned around to look to see what had occurred because we just assumed I’d fallen in an actual hole and there was nothing there,” she explains. “It looked just like the beach. It had filled itself right back in.”
Later, after changing out of her sand-caked clothes, Acord took to social media to warn others, especially those who frequent the beach alone during off-hours, of the potential danger lurking beneath the seemingly innocent sand.
Experts Weigh In
Jim Britt, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, shed light on the phenomenon, assuring that Acord’s experience, while alarming, was not as dire as it may have seemed.
“The reality with this supersaturated sand is you’re not going to go under,” Britt explained to the Associated Press. He attributed the unstable sand conditions to the effects of climate change, with winter storms redirecting river water to areas frequented by beachgoers.
Staying Safe in Quicksand
While the prospect of being trapped in quicksand may evoke images of Hollywood action sequences, Britt emphasized that it is a “100 percent survivable scenario” if handled correctly. “The rule is stay calm,” he advised. “Lean back. Find your way back.”
Sean Vaillancourt, who manages Popham Beach for Maine’s Bureau of Parks and Land, echoed the importance of remaining composed in such situations. “Just take your time and crawl out if you have to,” he told WFXT. “You can also lean forward or back in a floating position. The more you can disperse your weight over that, the more you can move freely.”