Friday, September 24, 2010

German tourist rescued from self-dug hole on Spanish beach

Spanish firefighters saved a 23-year-old German tourist from being buried alive on a Tenerife beach on Wednesday after a tunnel he built in the sand collapsed.

The young man had apparently planned to connect two holes more than two metres deep with a tunnel, but the sand collapsed around him, trapping him up to his neck for almost two hours. His girlfriend called emergency services, who rushed to the scene in a helicopter and managed to pull the man out uninjured with the help of other nearby beachgoers.



"He had built a three-metre (10-foot) deep hole when the sand buried him," a Tenerife fire department spokeswoman said, adding that five vehicles and 15 fire fighters were involved in the rescue.

Spanish newspaper Diario de Avisos charged the vacationer with stupidly endangering himself and forcing the massive rescue operation. “Foolishness cost the Canary Islands taxpayers €20,000,” the paper wrote.

You can see video of the rescue operation here.

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