Kipcicles2 wrote:I might have put this one up before here on QSF, but it's one of the more terrifying ones. This happened quite a while ago but I seem to remember it so clearly - as if it is scarred into my memory :/
I was on a Saturday morning job when I slipped up on the wet ground and slid down a short dirty cliff (about 2 or 3 meters high) and down into a big mud pit! I went in straight up to about mid-thigh, but my simple movements from trying to turn myself around and adjust to my surroundings made me go down to my waist. I didn't know how to swim, which really didn't help!
I had sunk up to my neck in the pit (bearing in mind I still wasn't feeling the bottom), when I heard footsteps so I shouted out and waited for 3 guys, about 18 or 19 years old each, to peer over the edge of the cliff I had fallen down around an hour ago. One of them went home to get towels and blankets IF I made it out alive, one of them went to get some kinda tree branch to use to help me out, while the other just stayed with me. It was really, really cold...but that wasn't really the biggest thing on my mind. I thought I was actually gonna die! A few minutes later and I had disappeared completely. I counted in my head for how long I was under the surface - 48 seconds - before I felt movement from somewhere in the pit. Next thing I know, one of the guys is wrapping my arms around a big ol' tree branch to sort-of "tow" me out the mud!
Despite almost getting hypothermia, receiving treatment for foreign substances in my lungs, as well as a fair share of injections, I was relatively unharmed from that incident. I'm also real grateful tot he lads who rescued me - without their quick-thinking and simple good-will, I wouldn't be here to tell the tale!
Your story is very similar to another that I had read at another location. That writer described how scared he was that he was going to drown. The only mud that I’ve ever experienced that’ll allow you to sink as though you have no buoyancy point I staid always mud. And not all tidal mud either. It has to be thick enough to keep you from simply floating back up to the surface, but not so thick that you won’t sink into it easily. And the only reason tidal mud allows you to sink like you’re in a Hollywood movie scene is because it creates more than enough suction to hold you down in it’s grip despite your body’s natural tendency to float back up to the surface. But in order to sink down to the point that you’re about to inhale mud and goo, you need to be practically panicked to the point that you keep shoving your feet down into it deeper and deeper. Normally when the mud is up around your ears your ability to keep thrashing about is seriously diminished enough that you’ll stop sinking any further. So if your head is tilted back, your face should be about even with the surface so you can still breathe. That’s the typical depth that I sink down to. At that point I stop and just stay like that for an hour or more while I enjoy the feeling of the mud as it squeezes in on my body all over. Sometimes I’ll sink down 3-6 inches more and allow the mud to start closing in over my face, as long as my nose remains where I can still breathe.
As the human body is nearly twice as dense as quicksand, I’m wondering how you were able to naturally sink down to the point that you injected mud into your lungs. That’s what typical Hollywood movie scripts try to get people to believe. But that’s not how quicksand really works. The average person will stop sinking once they’re between their waist or rib cage deep in the stuff where they’ll hit their buoyancy point and stop sinking. When I go sinking in tidal mud, I purposely look for mud that won’t be effected by my buoyancy point so I can easily sink down well past that. But if I have someone with less experience, I take them to where their buoyancy point will still prevent them from going completely under, yet it really won’t be a factor until they’re practically neck deep. I have no interest in ever seeing anyone get into real trouble under my watch. So likewise, I don’t allow people who go sinking with me to use heavy rubber boots or any type of waders, as they create too much suction. Additionally, I expect those that go sinking with me to be in really good shape as well. That’s because without having access to a fire hose, you essentially have to be able to extricate yourself from the mud. I’m not going to be able to do that for you. All I’d end up doing is sinking down as deep or even deeper than you happen to be. Thus, don’t go sinking any deeper than you can escape from. And don’t be too quick in thinking that you can’t escape either. Earlier this year I sank down in a spot to where I was shoulder deep. As the mud was quite a bit thicker down around my legs, I decided not to go down any further, as I already knew I was going to have to dig myself back out. This turned out to be the stickiest mud I’ve ever been in. Thus, it took around 2 full hours to escape. Getting back up to being waist deep took roughly 15 to 20 minutes. That was the easy part. But getting the rest of the way out was a real bear. It challenged every muscle in my body, as the suction was just relentless. It didn’t seem to matter how much material I dug up either...my feet just didn’t want to break free. So I switched to working on only one leg and dug quite a large area out down to my knee so I wouldn’t have to yank on them so hard (I already have bad knees as it is). Then I worked my way down to the base of my foot from the back side so I could finally break the suction. Once I got that leg out I now had leverage to slowly work my other leg back up to the surface. Meanwhile, my free leg had managed to get pushed back down sideways about 2 feet deep again. Normally that would’ve been completely insignificant, but not in this glue pit. It was my toughest extraction ever. I have no desire to sink in that spot again. I would say this was simply because I’m getting older (I’m 59), but no, that’s definitely not the case. I’ve spent the past five years using a professional trainer at the gym to rebuild my body thanks to a horrific motorcycle accident I had which resulted in having 1 vertebrae and 7 disk being removed from my back. I’m now considerably stronger than I’ve ever been before, including back when I was just a young lad in the military. While I’m limited in what I can do these days, that’s because I can’t tolerate any hard impacts, but sinking isn’t a high impact sport.
Stay safe and sink on!!!