A seasoned Utah hiker became trapped in quicksand during a solo trek through Arches National Park — as harrowing drone footage captured him struggling to break free, according to reports.
Austin Dirks, a hiker who has logged thousands of miles on trails, was navigating a canyon area in the Moab park on Sunday morning when his left leg suddenly blasted through solid ground, Fox13 reported.
“Before this trip, I honestly thought quicksand was more of a folklore or a legend,” Dirks told the outlet.
But he quickly learned it was a real thing.
“I was able to pull it out, and then I shifted all my weight to my right foot. And I sunk up to the knee,” Dirks recalled.
“It felt like I had stepped into concrete, and then it hardened around my leg. I couldn’t even move it a millimeter.”
Dirks then used his trusty GPS satellite messenger to notify authorities of his exact location.
The expert hiker was trapped in the quicksand for several hours in bone-chilling temperatures, NBC News reported.
“Where this person was, there was just no sun shining down in this canyon area,” rescue technician Jake Blackwelder told the outlet. “And so I was just taken aback by just how cold the ambient temperature was.”
Drone footage used by rescuers to help locate Dirks showed him struggling to keep his knees above ground in the quicksand.
Rescuers used a ladder and vehicle traction boards, which allowed them to safely work around the quicksand to reach the trapped hiker, Grand County Search and Rescue incident commander John Marshall said.
“How it’s depicted on TV is nothing like it is in real life,” Dirks told Fox13. “The human body is more buoyant than the quicksand, so you’ll never sink to above your head.”
Dirks managed to escape the precarious quicksand unscathed.
Quicksand sinking incidents are relatively rare. In 2019, a hiker in Zion National Park was trapped in quicksand for a day until he was rescued and airlifted in snowy weather.
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