What happens if you fall in quicksand

You're less dense than quicksand, so you can't sink unless you're holding heavy items or you struggle and make the quicksand liquify more.

It's the same principle that explains why you float in water thanks, Archimedes. It should be easy enough to drag yourself the few feet. If you're in the middle of a larger patch of quicksand, you're in more trouble, but then how did you get into the middle of it in the first place?

Nobody will blame you if you can't get yourself out. They suck your blood and spread disease, killing nearly one million people each year.

Are we talking about vampires? Related videos. Add comment. You may also like. Our lungs might be fine in that short a time frame, but the rest of the planet?

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Notify of. Inline Feedbacks. Popular What Ifs. What If Two Hurricanes Collided? Follow the What If show youtube snapchat facebook instagram. He put them on top of the sand and then, to simulate the flailing of a panicking human, he shook the whole model and waited to see what happened. The answer was no. At first they sunk a little, but as the sand gradually began to mix with water again, the buoyancy of the mixture increases and they floated back up to the top.

Bonn and his team tried placing all sorts of objects on his lab-made quicksand. If they were of density equivalent to a human they did sink, but never completely, only half way. This is really when quicksand can be dangerous. The quicksand effect means that falling into a silo full of grain can often be fatal Credit: Getty Images. They tested samples from the shores of a lagoon in north eastern Brazil.

They found that bacteria formed a crust on the top of the soil, giving the impression of a stable surface, but when stepped on the surface collapsed. Dry quicksand, however, is another matter entirely. The quicksand effect means that falling into a silo full of grain can often be fatal. In a case report was published telling the tale of a man who fell into a grain store late one evening on a farm in Germany. By the time the firefighters were able to establish which of eight tanks he was in, the grain was up to his armpits and acting according to the classic idea of quicksand, was dragging him down.

Each time he exhaled, the volume of his chest reduced, causing grain to rush to fill the gap and making it progressively harder for him to breathe.