A young man has died days after he was buried alive in a pit on a remote Australian beach in what 9News describes as a "freak accident." Josh Taylor, described as 23 or 25, was staying with friends at a beach campground on Queensland's Bribie Island on Saturday when he fell into a pit that had reportedly been dug to roast a pig in the traditional Maori style of cooking. A friend said Taylor was on a chair above the pit when the sand beneath him began to cave. "He'd put his arms out to obviously break the fall" but "continued going down and knocked sand as he's put his arms out," the friend said, per News.com.au. A witness described Taylor as being "head first" in the hole and buried under five feet of sand.
"All of his family were screaming at us, telling us to help, telling us to get rope so we could pull him out," the witness said, per News.com.au. "There were like 15 men on the rope pulling and he did not budge." Though the group finally succeeded in pulling Taylor free, the force on his body was too much. Friends and rangers with Queensland Parks and Wildlife performed CPR before Taylor could be airlifted to a Brisbane hospital, where he was listed in critical condition, per People.
"Unfortunately, the injuries he received were too severe for him to overcome" and he died Thursday, his family said, per 9News. He had been without a pulse for 45 minutes in the immediate aftermath of the incident, per News.com.au. Queensland Police said detectives continue to investigate "the circumstances surrounding the incident" and believe there could be "numerous people who were present and are yet to speak with police," per ABC Australia. Some $45,000 has been raised to support Taylor's family through a GoFundMe page. In a statement, the family described the young man as the "best son, brother, boyfriend and mate we could all have wished for," per 9News. (More Australia stories.)
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