You’ve seen it in movies, TV shows, and even video games, where quicksand is found in deserts, jungles, or swamps, as well as inside ruins or temples as traps for would-be treasure thieves.
An unsuspecting person then steps on what looks like solid ground when, surprise! It’s actually quicksand! The poor fellow then slowly starts sinking to the bottom, as though he is being pulled straight down to hell by an unseen force. Any attempts at struggling does nothing. In fact, it seems to make them sink even faster. Without outside intervention like someone grabbing onto a person or them finding something to grab onto like a thick and sturdy vine, it is all but certain that the person who is caught in the quicksand trap will be dragged to its depths, causing them to die of suffocation from the sand and water that surrounds them.
But that’s how quicksand is presented in different types of media. How about in real life? Is quicksand really as deadly as it appears in TV?
Where is quicksand found?
Contrary to what the movies say, quicksand is not as common as it seems. They are still real, however, and can be found in places where the soil is grainy. This includes riverbanks, beaches, and marshes.
But one place you won’t find quicksand in is the desert.
If you’ve noticed a pattern in the locations mentioned earlier, you’ll see that there is some form of water that can be found nearby. Riverbanks are obviously near rivers, beaches are near the sea, and marshes have a lot of bodies of water in them.
Deserts have no such bodies of water nearby, and thus, finding quicksand in these places is an impossibility. The reason is that the flowing water underground disturbs the sand, as well as other particles like soil or clay, essentially turning it into what we know as quicksand. As a result, no water = no quicksand.
Can quicksand kill you?
Yes, it can, but not in the way you might think.
So, the way movies depict it, where a character sinks down to the bottom and suffocates from the combined efforts of sand and water? It’s actually nothing but a complete myth, and for a good number of reasons.
To start, quicksand doesn’t have the “sucking” power that so many movies seem to employ, where quicksand seems to be like superglue that drags an unfortunate victim down its depths.
To add onto that, quicksand is very dense. Our legs are also dense, and may sink, but we’ll stop sinking once the quicksand reaches our torso, as that is where our lungs are located. In other words, you can rule out drowning by sand on your grave, because that’s not going to be happening anytime soon.
Instead, what you should be worried about is getting trapped in the quicksand. While quicksand doesn’t have the vacuum sucking properties that movies show, what it does portray accurately is that a panicked person that tries to get out of quicksand with no rhyme or reason with their motions will only serve to get them sucked deeper into the quicksand. What’s more, motion will reduce the friction and loosen the grains of sand, but once the sand settles again, it’ll act like a solid, making it even more difficult for you to escape. With the right combination and consistency of clay, sand, water, and salt, however, it can be nearly impossible to escape quicksand without outside help of any form.
So, if you don’t suffocate, where does death fit in?
Exhaustion. If expend too much effort by struggling to get out, you can work yourself to exhaustion and die from both it and exposure in the process. This doesn’t just apply to humans either – any animal unlucky enough to get caught and tries to escape in a panic may end killing themselves from over exhaustion from attempting to escape, or even predation from predators that see an easy meal stuck.
Now, if you’re carrying enough heavy material that significantly weighs you down, then your lungs may not be buoyant enough to lift you, and actually cause the rest of your body to sink as well. But a caveat that you should know is that while it is possible to die of suffocation this way, the same logic applies to regular water, so really, you’re in no danger of drowning under quicksand than you are underwater.
The real difficulty and danger comes from getting out of it once you’re stuck, because it can be quite difficult to do so, especially depending on what type of material and composition the quicksand is made out of.
Wrapping up
The dangers of quicksand in movies are highly exaggerated, likely for dramatic effect. In real life, while quicksand can and will trap you if you somehow find yourself in its snare, you are very much unlikely to die from suffocation or drowning. Instead, you should be more careful about how to escape from the quicksand, as its mode of attack is a war of attrition instead against your endurance and energy.