A man got stuck up to his waist in the silt of an Alaska estuary and drowned as the tide came in before rescuers could extract him, authorities say.
A channel flows through the mud flats along the Seward Highway and Turnagain Arm in Alaska on Oct. 25, 2014. Authorities said, a 20-year-old man from Illinois who was walking Sunday evening, May 21, 2023, on tidal mud flats with friends in an Alaska estuary, got stuck up to his waist in the quicksand-like silt and drowned as the tide came in before frantic rescuers could extract him.
“It’s big, it’s amazing, it’s beautiful, and it’s overwhelming,” Kristy Peterson, the administrator and lead EMT for the Hope-Sunrise Volunteer Fire Department, said of Alaska. “But you have to remember that it’s Mother Nature, and she has no mercy for humanity.” The accident occurred near the community of Hope, a quaint community of about 80 people. It lies across Turnagain Arm just 22 miles — but a 90-minute drive — from Anchorage.
When the tide comes back in, the silt gets wet from the bottom, loosens up and can create a vacuum if a person walks on it.“I’ve really got to warn people against playing the mud,” Peterson said. “It’s dangerous.”
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