they place a bucket over his head to protect him from the shifting sand while they continue to dig out the rest of his body. we can pull him out! back off if you re not a firefighter or lifeguard. back off. rescuers take a strap usually used to tow vehicles and slip it around meena s upper body. and then they pull. whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. when we pulled matt out and he started breathing, the applause just sent chills up your spine. [ cheers and applause ] everybody back up! it s a moment meena buried underneath the sand for more than 30 minutes didn t think would come. but here he is one month later. sharing his harrowing story. well, i was six feet underneath. can t hear anything above the ground. for meena the nightmare began when he was on his stomach six
beach. 17-year-old matt meena is trapped underneath six feet of sand when the hole he s digging collapses in on him. alerted by meena s cousins, lifeguards, including captain mike helfide, rush to his aid. witnesses capture the rescue attempt on camera. when i first came on scene, we had two lifeguards digging and then four or five of matt s cousins and friends that he was with. at that point we started getting more volunteers. helfide organizes the group into three concentric circles surrounding the spot where meena was last seen. the first rescuers are inside moving sand, trying to locate the patient. the second ring takes the sand from the rescuers and move it further out. the third ring is to take the sand and disperse it further out. as word ripples out that a teenager is trapped, bystanders start converging on the scene and the crowd grows.
once you are under more than four to six minutes, brain death starts to occur. by ten minutes your chance of survival is very limited. my expectations is this is a body recovery at that point. just horrifying to think of that. but lifeguards, firefighters, police, and the volunteers continue to work feverishly. i tried to pull a couple of them out of the hole after about 20 minutes of digging, but they just wouldn t come out. they were in there and they were going to pull him out. after close to 30 minutes of frantic digging, finally news comes from the center of the giant pit. rescuers can see the top of meena s head. that s a long time though. and unbelievably, it looks like he s alive. he was taking slow, deep, gasping breaths, and his ears were blue, which indicated to us that we were literally, literally within a minute or two of perhaps losing brain cells and matt dying. the rescuers quickly get the sand away from meena s face and get him oxygen.
using up the precious oxygen that was still in there. meena is carted away in an ambulance and only later do rescuers learn that he escapes without injury. it s extremely remarkable that he didn t at least have some broken ribs or a broken skull or it didn t the sheer weight of it crush his chest cavity to where he couldn t even breathe period. even meena can t believe his luck. i kept asking them in the hospital is there sand in my lungs. no sand. everything checked out. perfectly healthy. my oxygen levels were normal. from now on, he ll follow the lifeguard s advice, no digging holes deeper than the height of your knee. a few days after being pulled from the sand, meena gets to meet some of the people who saved his life. this is brian and mike. these are the two lifeguards that were on the scene first. i was really thankful just
feet below the surface digging a horizontal tunnel. i felt a little bit of sand on my leg come down. little chunks. then the whole thing all of a sudden just came down. tried to back out when i felt the sand on my legs but it was too late. happened so fast. meena screams and shakes his head side to side to keep sand off his face. in the process, he creates a small air pocket, allowing him to breathe. he was able to make just enough pocket to have enough air to survive. that s probably what made the big difference. that s what gave us that time to find him and rescue him. as he begins to feel the weight of the sand, meena passes out which likely helps keep him alive while everyone on the surface searches for him. matt had been down there screaming trying to pump his arms and trying to move his head. one, he could have lost that void space. it could have collapsed in on him. and two, he would have been