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Five Dig Way Out of Trap and Rescue Sixth. Death is Instantaneous SAND cave built by a group of Seal Beach boys turned into a death trap yesterday when it caved in, burying seven boys, who were playing in it, under an avalanche of wet sand. Five of the trapped boys fought their way to freedom and rescued the sixth member of the party. The seventh boy, Jackie Ward, year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Willis H. Ward, Seal Beach, was dead when his playmates found his body. The crushing weight of the sand had caused his lungs to col lapse, doctors said. The boys, all residents of Seal Beach, were playing in the cave they had dug into the side of a hill near Anaheim Landing. The roof of the cave was heamed over. One of the boys noticed dirt starting to fall into the tunnel leading into the cave and gave the alarm. Two of the boys, Jackie Ward and Billy Taylor, 14, start ed for the tunnel, hoping to beat the falling dirt. The other boys, Stuart Lawhead, 14, Frank Fether, 13, Ronald Brown, 10, and Ralph Drent, 12, remained in the cave , dug their way out through top. Young Lawhead took charge when the five boys reached the surface. “We've got to get Bill,” he said, and started digging at the dirt with his bare hands. While he and some of the other boys dug frantically at the muddy sand, Lawhead sent one of the younger boys to telephone for the police. After several minutes of frenzied digging, with their bare hands the boys reached Billy Taylor. They scraped the sand away from his head, Billy's first words were “Where is Jackie?” The other boys told him “he got out and went home,” but Billy said “No, he didn’t, he was right beside me.” Frantically the boys started digging again.
Newspaper Details
Santa Ana Daily Evening Register
Santa Ana, California, US
Mon, Feb 03, 1936
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Amber C.
USA 12 Jun 2026
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