Deputy Derrick Holmes of the sheriff’s office in Florida’s Putnam county spotted Giddens’ abandoned car on 23 February relatively close to a sand plant belonging to Vulcan Materials Company.... Vulcan employees, meanwhile, had not stopped looking for signs of Giddens when one spotted him during the early evening of 25 February in shoulder-deep mud by what is known as a borrow pit.... Giddens was alert and could talk, but the worker who had found him could not get to him because he was surrounded by “unstable” ground, the sheriff’s office said.... The elaborate [rescue] operation took about three hours, with rescuers needing to be careful to not become stuck in the mud themselves....
March 2, 2026
Another close call for Florida man.
"Missing Florida man found over a week later trapped in shoulder-deep mud/Local crews rescued Andrew Giddens, 36, near a borrow pit after he faced freezing weather without food or water" (The Guardian).
Here's the sheriff's office video, which refers to the substance — in scare quotes — as "quick sand."
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13 comments:
The Pit without Pendulum
His boots are still there.
That is the stuff of nightmares.
The caption of the photo showing the rescuers says they're "Specialized officials".
The Mud Team?
Borrow pits are common, especially along freeways or interstates that have overpasses. The dig up the dirt they need as close as possible to where they need to put it. These pits often fill with water, making them borrow ponds.
Here are two borrow ponds that were created to make the Des Plaines Tollway Oasis near Chicago. My friends and I used to fish them as kids.
Oasis Ponds
Reporter: What 's the best thing to do for somebody who's been pulled out the mud like this?
Mud Team Captain: Give him sec to pull his socks up, then hose him off.
Whew
Yancey Ward said...
"That is the stuff of nightmares."
And comedy.
He was alert after a week? At least the mud kept him warm.
Many developments in flat Florida depend on borrow pits. The land is so prone to puddling that developers look for natural high points, dig shallow ponds in the low points nearby, and build on only half the land. This results in a massive number of unusable (floodzone mud puddle) lakes, and it keeps the groundwater a yard or two below the foundations.
Without borrow pits nearby, they have to truck in mountains of sand. You can feel lumpy settled sand underneath I95 and elsewhere.
Finally a case to justify all my fears of quicksand. Thank you, Zorro! and Lone Ranger!
So many ways to go missing down here.
Did he have a foot on a rail?
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