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The longest of long shots...

Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2010 1:06 pm
by steve70
This is probably the longest of long shots, but if you don't ask...

Do any UK members remember a magazine article from the late 70's/early 80's about a young man nearly drowning in quicksand on Morecambe Bay? The magazine was a weekly aimed mainly at women and used to have a "Real Life Drama" feature every week. Usually it was car accidents, house fires, that kind of thing. In this edition, a 19-year-old man was walking across Morecambe Bay when he and his girlfriend got stuck in the quicksand. His girlfriend managed to get out fairly easily, but he sank quite deep - I've got a very vage memory of him saying he could feel the water in his armpits - before his friends pulled him out.

The article made a strong impression on my memory and I've been trying to find it again for years, buthout any luck, so I was wondering if, by some miracle, somebody else remembered it.

Re: The longest of long shots...

Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2010 8:52 pm
by Jaguar Paw
I seem to recall asimilar article in the magazine "Weekend", now sadly defunct. Could it be the one you are looking for?

Re: The longest of long shots...

Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 2:42 am
by Boggy Man
Reader's Digest has "Drama In Real Life" articles, with the one in the January 1998 issue being "Trapped Between Quicksand and Tide", where a man got caught in the quicksand at Morecambe Bay. But, he was walking there alone, and he was just about to turn 30. Rescue crews got him out just in time.

Re: The longest of long shots...

Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 6:20 am
by steve70
I think you may be onto something, Jaguar Paw. I thought the magazine may have been called something like "Weekend" but I wasn't sure. As it was 30 years ago and I was only a child at the time, my memory could have been playing tricks on me! The incident described in Readers Digest actually featured in a UK prime-time TV series called "999", similar to the US series "911".

Thanks to both of you for replying :-)

Re: The longest of long shots...

Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 8:27 pm
by Jaguar Paw
Thanks, steve70, I hoped someone besides myself would remember "Weekend" magazine; every week they printed a different survival story; I remember stories by a guy who got trapped in a grain silo when they poured the grain in, another by a soldier who survived being crushed by a Centurion tank....

Re: The longest of long shots...

Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2010 12:07 pm
by steve70
Thanks to you as well, Jaguar Paw, I'd been trying to look for that story for ages and was starting to think that I was loosing my proverbial marbles, that the article and magazine were both false memories! :D