There’s many things for parents and others to be concerned with during a day at the beach, including sharks, heat exhaustion and rip tides. But there’s one danger that’s often overlooked and could likely be fatal without the proper precautions.

A nine-year-old Oregon girl lost her life on Friday when the hole she had dug in the sand collapsed, burying her alive and causing her to suffocate.

“We heard screaming,” Tracey Dudley, who was staying at a nearby hotel, said. “At first we thought, you know, it was just kids. But it was like screaming and screaming and screaming.”

The screaming she heard was young Isabel Grace Franks’ siblings panicking and screaming for help, according to Fox13.

“Her and her siblings were digging a big hole in the sand,” Lincoln City police Sgt. Brian Eskridge said. “She was sitting inside, and the hole collapsed. We believe she was under the sand around five minutes.”

Franks was at the beach on vacation with family and friends from Sandy, Oregon. Beachgoers had frantically tried to dig her out of the sand, but it kept collapsing back into the hole and proved unsuccessful.

When police and firefighters arrived, they were able to successfully remove her from the sand. Emergency crews tried their best to keep her alive by performing CPR and transporting her to the hospital, but she was declared dead on arrival.

Beach memorial for Isabel Grace Franks

Mourners for the young victim of a tragic accident left flowers, notes and candles at the place where she died.

The incident highlights a common problem when people end up getting buried at the beach, according to Tom Gill of the United States Lifesaving Association.

“Once the sand starts collapsing, digging out becomes a technical rescue,” Gill said. “It’s difficult because the sand keeps collapsing back into the hole, and the more people gathering around, the more difficult it is.”

“It’s not unusual for kids to build holes and sandcastles in the sand, but a lot of people don’t understand it can collapse,” Eskridge said. “It’s difficult for people to understand how hard it is to get people out.”

A 2004 study from the Mayo Clinic titled “Accidental Burials in Sand: A Potentially Fatal Summertime Hazard” noted that dry sand weighs 100 pounds per square foot, and once you add water to it the weight increases to 120 pounds.

“Dry sand burial can totally engulf and compress a person… with no air pocket for breathing,” the report said. “Depending on the age and strength of the child, just 1 foot of sand may overwhelm respiratory and diaphragmatic force.”

However, the study said that an even bigger concern than the weight of the sand is the fact that a person’s airway becomes obstructed. It said that while initially being buried has its own set of clinical issues, proper airway management at the scene of the accident can mean the difference between life and death for the victim.

Children aren’t’ the only people at risk for sand burial either. A 49-year-old Virginia man named David Frasier died on North Carolina’s Outer Banks in June after the six-foot deep hole he was standing in collapsed. In July, Adam Jay Pye was killed in Half Moon Bay, California when the 10-foot deep hole he was standing in suddenly gave way.

Make sure you share this story so that others can be informed of the potential risks at the beach.