Boy Buried Alive In Indiana Dunes Breathing On His Own

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jul 18, 2013 7:20PM

Nathan Woessner

Nathan Woessner, the 6-year-old boy who was buried alive for three hours after a sand dune collapsed on him at Indiana Dunes State Park, is now breathing on his own, continues to recover from his ordeal and has had his condition upgraded from critical to serious.

The Tribune reports doctors removed Woessner from a ventilator and have stopped sedating the boy. He was suffering from pneumonia-like symptoms after he fell into a hole in the park's popular Mount Baldy and became trapped under 11 feet of sand. Park officials believe Woessner was able to survive because an air pocket formed when the dune collapsed.

Officials have closed Mount Baldy indefinitely and have brought in outside investigators to determine the cause of the dune's collapse. They believe the hole Woessner fell into may have been caused by a tree buried in the sand that decomposed.