Girl survives after being buried in sand for 15 minutes

A teenager trapped in a collapsed sand hole for quarter of an hour has thanked emergency service staff and holidaymakers for saving her life. Paige Anderson, 15, initially appeared lifeless when she was dug out from beneath 1.5 metres (5ft) of compacted sand on the beach at Caister in Norfolk. She had stopped breathing but has made a full recovery after treatment over the weekend at the James Paget university hospital in Gorleston, Great Yarmouth. She told the Great Yarmouth Mercury: "I'm OK – just shocked really. "I've got a bit of a sore back. I can't remember what happened exactly. I remember crouching down to go through the tunnel, then it all went black." She is continuing her seaside holiday with her parents and older sister Jade, 19, who had joined with her in a lighthearted but dangerous piece of burrowing. The pair had each dug a sand hole and made an interconnecting tunnel. Paige was about to clamber out when the sides collapsed on top of her. Coastguards, lifeboat crew and families on the beach joined police in a rapid rescue dig after the collapse. Paige's father, Michael, who had organised the holiday at Haven Hopton, near Great Yarmouth, from the family's home in Kent, said: "I was going to lift her out of her hole, but it was too deep so she said she'd make some steps and climb out. I turned around to speak to my youngest and when I looked back the sides were collapsing. Then she was gone. The rest is a blur. "The whole thing has restored my faith in people. I just can't thank them enough." The coastguard issued a warning over the weekend, urging families in East Anglia to be careful on beaches and when using inflatables or small boats just offshore. The service warned that high winds forecast for the coast between north-east Lincolnshire and south Suffolk would make conditions "extremely dangerous". The Caister lifeboat Bernard Matthews II had to take a dinghy in tow on Sunday after a 32-year-old man and his teenage son got into difficulties in windy weather.