There's a killer in the deserts and coastlines of the United States, and if you're not careful
you'll disappear with just one wrong step and be lost forever.
Lake Michigan, 2013.
Six year old Nathan Woessner and his family are enjoying the surf and sun in the Indiana
Dunes National Lakeshore, a popular getaway for local families.
For thousands of years the winds and waves of Lake Michigan have steadily deposited a
rising landscape of sand dunes, making the place look more like a Saharan desert location
than the shore of one of America's famous great lakes.
The most impressive feature though is the steep 126 foot (38 meter) Mt.
Baldy, a massive sand dune that towers above all the rest.
As families and their children play all along its edges and try to summit the mini-mountain
of sand, they have no idea that a deadly booby trap has been laying in wait for centuries.
Long, long ago, this stretch of shore was covered with trees, much like the rest of
Lake Michigan.
When the sand began to pile up though, it slowly choked the trees to death.
One particularly massive tree held on longer than the rest, until it too succumbed to the
rising sand.
After an untold number of years, the tree was completely covered by the massive sand
dune, and the wood within rotted away from the lakeside moisture seeping through the
sand.
What remained in its place is a massive cavity, with a small cap of sand atop it- the perfect
trap, waiting to be sprung.
That trap would wait centuries before claiming its victim.
Little Nathan and his father, Greg, join family friend Keith Karrow and his own son, Colin,
on an impromptu climb to the top of Mount Baldy.
The boys rush ahead as little boys do, and begin to eagerly chase each other up the massive
sand dune.
Neither of the two fathers are on guard, they have nothing to fear- families have been playing
here for decades after all, and what danger could a massive sand dune possibly hold after
all?
They let the boys rush up and ahead of them, chatting amongst themselves as they slowly
follow suit.
The perfect day on the beach is about to take a horrifying turn.
Nathan and Colin playfight as they run up the sand dune, and then suddenly- Nathan vanishes
right in front of Colin's eyes.
After all these years, Nathan has finally managed to do it: he's triggered the deadly
booby trap of Mt.
Baldy.
One wrong step and Nathan vanishes in a plume of sand, leaving behind only a small hole.
Colin can't believe his eyes, and then in a panic, rushes down the dune yelling out
that Nathan has vanished.
The fathers are confused, but then they look up to where Colin is pointing and see the
impression left in the sand.
“He fell in this hole!”, shouts Colin.
Cold terror gripping them, the men begin to pound up the sand dune, reaching the hole
seconds later.
The men try to look down into the hole, but all they see is darkness.
They call out to Nathan, and hear a muffled reply, “I'm scared!”.
The reach their arms down into the hole, but feel nothing but empty air.
In a growing panic, the men begin to look around for rope or driftwood- literally anything
that they can use to reach down into the cavity.
But there's nothing around them except sand dunes.
The men now start to desperately dig, shoving away handfuls of the very loose sand.
This isn't like regular sand, years of wear by wind and waves has made it very fine and
smooth, causing friction to barely hold it together.
As the men dig, more of the sand slips down the sides and into the hole.
Now the men realize that they run the risk of burying Nathan alive, and try to widen
the hole to lessen how much sand slides back in.
It's no use though, the men must dig to reach Nathan trapped somewhere in the darkness below
them, but digging only means more sand gets poured down that same hole.
Sand that's slowly starting to cover up the trapped Nathan, who is stuck in the heart
of this mountain of sand.
Then their worst nightmare happens- the sand dune suffers a catastrophic collapse.
In an instant, tons of sand rush into the hole, completely burying Nathan with a final
whimper.
There is barely an indentation left on the face of the dune to signal where Nathan has
been lost, or where the men have been furiously digging.
The two fathers are dumbfounded, then quickly recover and begin to once more furiously dig.
Colin meanwhile has run down the dune and found Nathan's mother, Faith, running in a
blind panic.
Faith doesn’t understand what Colin is telling her, but she knows that something is seriously
wrong.
She rushes up to the sand dune and discovers Keith and Greg digging.
She understands exactly what's going on long before Greg comes running towards her to tell
her that the sands have swallowed up Nathan.
911 is called, the dispatchers are baffled.
She dispatches the fire department, but it's going to be a long time before they can get
there.
In the meantime, the three dig, now joined by Keith's wife.
It's no use though, the more they dig, the more they disturb the sand dune, causing sand
to slide down from the top of the dune and undo all of their hard work.
They've been at it for fifteen minutes now and barely made a hole more than a few inches
deep.
Police, firefighters, and paramedics begin to show up.
There's confusion, nobody is sure exactly what's going on.
Some of the first responders have rope, assuming that the boy simply fell into a hole.
They're horrified to discover that Nathan hasn't just fallen into a hole, he's fallen
straight into the heart of Mount Baldy and been swallowed alive by the sands.
Well, alive is a relative term by now.
It's been a half hour since Nathan has been buried by tons of sand.
Nobody on-scene says it, but everyone is thinking it- Nathan is likely gone by now.
Still, the police, EMS and firefighters join the effort, furiously digging by hand and
refusing to give up on Nathan.
Faith begins to pray, asking God to give Nathan an air pocket to survive in.
Others join her, praying through gritted teeth as they try to move several tons of sand with
nothing but their bare hands and brute determination.
Finally, an hour after Nathan was buried alive, firefighters with shovels begin to show up.
The men work in shifts, furiously digging into the massive sand dune.
To avoid having the sand pour in and erase all their work, they widen the whole- but
it's of little use.
Another hour has gone by and the men have dug barely five feet down.
There's no sign of Nathan anywhere.
Still nobody wants to believe it, but everyone knows it- they are now officially looking
for a body now.
That doesn't stop or slow their efforts though, and the emergency personnel throw themselves
at the task of digging with everything they've got.
Faith continues praying, just one miracle- just one miracle and she'll never ask for
anything more again.
It's been over two hours and finally some heavy equipment has made it on-scene.
An excavator has arrived and begins to make its trek up the sand dunes.
The powerful machine digs its treads into the sand as the incline rises steeply, but
even its powerful engine is no match for the loose sand.
With hearts sinking in their chests, the rescuers and Nathan's friends and family watch as the
excavator is forced to turn back.
It'll be of no use here.
Nevertheless, the men continue to dig, even though they are getting demoralized by the
sand continuing to rush into the hole.
It's three steps forward and two steps backwards.
Sometimes though the sand is particularly cruel, and on those occasions it's five steps
back as hundreds of pounds of sand rushes to fill the hole made by the rescue effort.
Now a tracked backhoe appears, a little lighter and more agile than the big excavator.
However, the sand makes it impossible for the machine to get to the top, its treads
slipping and sliding on the infuriatingly loose sugar sand of Mount Baldy.
That won't stop this driver though, and if he can't drive to the top, he'll simply pull
himself.
The driver maneuvers the backhoe like an expert, plunging it deep into the sand and then using
the powerful engine to literally pull the backhoe up the side of the massive dune.
After four hours, the backhoe is finally in position to begin digging.
Faith is nearly hysterical at this point.
Her nerves have been shot through by watching the fine sand fill in all the hard work the
rescuers do.
When the backhoe is in position, she screams out that they're going to chop Nathan in half
with the massive scoop.
The rescue workers try to calm her down, and one of them takes a large rod and begins to
prod the sand.
Only after meticulously, but quickly, checking several feet of sand is the ok given for the
backhoe to move into action.
The big machine is finally winning the fight against Mount Baldy, but it's forced to dig
only two inches at a time to avoid accidentally hitting Nathan's buried body.
Greg and Faith are encouraged to leave the rescue site and return to the police station
with a patrol car.
There they're given blankets to cover themselves with- they're still in their swimwear and
dusk is approaching.
The police try to comfort the distraught pair, promising that every effort is being made
to recover Nathan.
None of the police officers mentions that at this point, they're looking for a body
to at least give the grieving family a chance to say goodbye.
Nobody even knows if they can find the body though, given the incredible size of the sand
dune.
Nathan might be lost forever, the family's last memories of their little boy being him
calling out for help from beneath several feet of sand.
Back at the rescue site though, the probe finally strikes something solid.
Carefully, the backhoe is maneuvered to slowly scrape away several inches of sand.
The probe confirms that they're nearing the solid object- what must be Nathan.
The men dig with their bare hands, but suddenly, the sands shift and Nathan slips even deeper
into the sand dune.
The backhoe is put to work once more, quickly, but delicately, digging away at tons of sand.
Finally, a firefighter brushes away a layer of sand and sees the blonde hair on the top
of Nathan's head.
He begins to frantically dig, praying that the effort doesn't cause him to simply sink
further.
Finally, he manages to uncover Nathan down to his armpits, and with a furious effort
he and a few others pull Nathan free.
The firefighter who found him fights back his own grief- Nathan reminds him of his own
little boy.
Nathan's unresponsive.
The firefighter wipes sand off Nathan's face and checks for breath.
Nothing.
He puts an ear to his chest, hoping against hope to hear a heartbeat.
Once more, nothing.
They won't give up though, not after this much fighting.
Nathan is passed down the side of the dune from man to man and rushed to a lifeguard
truck, then to a waiting ambulance.
Kicking up gravel, the ambulance immediately rushes to the hospital.
The paramedics try to insert a breathing tube to begin manually forcing oxygen into Nathan's
lungs, but his lungs are full of sand.
They barely manage to get any air into his tiny body, but keep trying anyways.
Things look very grim.
Aside from not breathing, Nathan is freezing cold.
At a depth of approximately 20 feet (6 meters) the sand retains the icy cold temperatures
of Lake Michigan, turning it into a refrigerator.
But modern medical science has a rule: you're not dead until you're warm and dead.
There's still a chance, no matter how faint.
Nathan's parents are told their little boy has been found, and a police unit rushes them
to the hospital.
Doctors won't tell them what's going on though, and they have no idea if Nathan is alive or
not.
They piece together that he was found unresponsive, but they aren't sure what that actually means.
Behind closed doors, doctors are furiously working to save Nathan.
They have room to hope- on the way to the hospital, Nathan had begun to bleed lightly
from a cut on his forehead.
This was evidence of a heartbeat.
Incredibly, the icy sand had actually worked to save Nathan's life, lowering his body temperature
to the point that his body required little oxygen to survive.
But coming back to consciousness is another thing entirely.
As doctors vacuum sand out of his lungs and stomach, they fear that Nathan's brain has
been starved of oxygen for so long that it's suffered irreparable damage.
All that could be left of Nathan is the most basic of brain functions- heart beating, lungs
breathing, and nothing more.
Then, suddenly, Nathan regains consciousness.
His parents are told that their boy is not only alive, but actually speaking!
It's nothing short of an outright miracle, and one that will continue to defy the odds.
Within two weeks, Nathan will be home and playing with his siblings, with absolutely
zero lingering side effects.
Now go check out Trapped in a collapsed mine for 69 days, or click this other video instead!