Six-year-old boy survives after been trapped in sand dune!

Six-year-old boy survives hours trapped in sand dune

updated 2:56 AM EDT, Mon July 15, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Nathan Woessner, 6, was visiting the northern Indiana sand dunes with family
• The sand dunes, which line Lake Michigan, can sometime give way
• Nathan is in critical condition but does not appear to have any brain damage

 For 3 1/2 hours, rescuers dug desperately to reach the 6-year-old boy swallowed whole in the northern Indiana sand dunes.

But the more they dug, the deeper Nathan Woessner seemed to sink in the 11-foot mound of sand.

“One minute you’re thinking, ‘We don’t know what we’re going to have,’ and you’re thinking the worst. Then you’re hoping for the best,” one of the rescuers, Rich Elm, said.

“There was lots and lots of guys hand digging, trying to expose him making sure nobody was going to hurt him or anything with any equipment.”

Six-year-old Nathan Woessner and his family had gone to Mount Baldy Beach at the Indiana Dunes National Park on Friday. It was a day meant to be a fun family vacation at the beach on the Lake Michigan shoreline.

But then the unexpected happened. Every parent’s worst nightmare: sounds of screams and a missing boy.

911 Operator: 9-1-1.

Caller: I’m at the Mount Baldy Beach. And my friend’s son, he got stuck in the sand dune, and he’s like under the sand and they can’t get him out.

Relatives and loved ones scrambled to dig through the sand. It didn’t help.

911 Operator: Ok, can anybody see him or is he completely covered by sand?

Caller: Uh, yes. My husband and his dad are trying to dig him out.

Dozens of first responders rushed to the scene, with excavation equipment and shovels in hand. They raced against the clock.

An hour went by.

Then another.

“We were really losing hope fast, and we tried to just stay focused,” Michigan City firefighter Brad Kreighbaum told reporters. “The first two hours was complete misery.”

More than three and a half hours later, signs of life.

Nathan was trapped vertically in the sand.

“Once I had a hold of his head, I was supporting to him and just talking to him you know, just like I would talk to my own son,” Kreighbaum said.

An unconscious Nathan was rushed to a hospital. Authorities do not believe he suffered brain damage from lack of oxygen, or any other life threatening injuries.

A single air pocket in the dune may have saved his life.

“When he arrived, he was able to respond to simple commands,” University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital said in a statement.

The boy remained in critical condition late Sunday night.

Park rangers do not know what caused the hole. Mount Baldy is the tallest moving sand dune in the national lakeshore, according to the National Park Service. Its half-buried trees are proof.

“I’ve been a park ranger here at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore since 1991, and I’ve never heard of anything like this here or at other sand dune parks,” Park Ranger Bruce Rowe told said. “It’s baffling.”

The beach will remain closed at least until Monday as authorities investigate what caused the sand to give way.

prove recreational drug is safe, then you can sell it!

A sample of synthetic drugs is displayed by drug enforcement officials.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• New Zealand Parliament passes new drug law 119-1
• Recreational drug makers can sell products if they prove its safety
• Law only applies to synthetic drugs, not marijuana, cocaine, etc
• New Zealand is first to change its tactic on psychoactive drugs

The New Zealand government wants to make sure your high is safe.

In an attempt to tackle the popularity of new-generation synthetic party drugs — sold widely in convenience stores and blamed for triggering a spate of mental health issues — New Zealand authorities have taken a radical new tack.

A new law shifts the onus to the makers of synthetic recreational drugs, forcing them to conduct clinical tests to prove their products are safe — similar to the way pharmaceuticals are regulated.

It’s the first nation to take a dramatically different approach to psychoactive substances like party pills and synthetic marijuana — which the United Nations has flagged as an alarming drug problem. Some psychoactive substances go by names like bath salts, spice or meow-meow.

The hidden dangers of synthetic drugs

Fake pot sends teen to ICU

Teen nearly dies smoking fake pot

Big bust on ‘bath salts’ operation

In a 119-to-1 vote on Thursday, the country’s parliament passed the Psychoactive Substances Bill, establishing a framework for testing, manufacturing and selling such recreational drugs.

The new law does not apply to non-synthetic drugs like marijuana, cocaine or magic mushrooms.

In a country that prides itself as a “social laboratory,” New Zealand has become “a laboratory in every sense: for the approval of new recreational drugs,” according to an editorial in the New Zealand Herald.

The drug law enjoyed broad support although there was debate over whether animal testing would be required in the clinical tests.

“While other countries are still blindly banning drug after drug, the Psychoactive Substances Bill will put New Zealand ahead of the industry’s game,” said Ross Bell, the New Zealand Drug Foundation‘s executive director in a statement in support of the law. “It is a comprehensive, pragmatic and innovative approach to address a complex problem.”

This contrasts with countries where substances are legal until the governments ban them. Chemical concoctions come out fairly routinely — far outpacing efforts to control them.

When one product is banned, “there are two or three or four replacements in the market,” said Bell.

And authorities can’t prevent the drug makers from selling new concoctions.

“You can’t ban what yet doesn’t exist,” Bell said. “The government isn’t in the position to pre-empt these things.”

New Zealand is unique because of its remote geography, he added.

“It’s because we’re a small remote country,” he said. “Drugs like heroine don’t make their way to New Zealand. What we’ve become good at doing is making our own drugs.”

Psychoactive substances have raised concerns over their ingredients and effects. Some are known to cause paranoia, hallucinations, convulsions and psychotic episodes.

“In lots of ways, this synthetic cannabis is way worse than the real stuff with a number of people who are becoming psychotic as a result,” said Dr. Mark Peterson, the chair of the New Zealand Medical Association.

Under the law, new psychoactive drugs cannot be sold unless they pass health regulations. That process will be determined by the country’s Ministry of Health.

The new regulation “has to be rigorous and robust enough to stand up to public scrutiny. To be licensed, to be legal, it has to pass testing like new medicine in the market,” said Grant Hall, general manager of the advocacy group, The Star Trust, which represents members of the legal high industry in the country.

The industry wants to “be recognized as other highs” such as alcohol and tobacco, he added.

Hall said he expects the industry to take a hit on profits as they’ll now have to submit costly and lengthy applications to be be sold on the market. But he views it as an investment.

“You have take a long term view,” Hall said. “It’s a legitimate industry that provides certified low-risk product so people can enjoy them safely. That’s a much better business model than the better cat-and-mouse game the industry plays with the government.”

Here is what else the Psychoactive Substances Bill entails:

– Restricts where and how psychoactive drugs are sold

– Prohibits sales to minors

– Restricts labeling and packaging of products

– Gives existing products a grace period to begin application process