WPVI: The sand on the sides of the trench collapsed on him suddenly while the others in his group were nearby playing bocce ball, he told The Associated Press. As the sand pressed down on him, he wiggled his head to get a small pocket of air but then began to panic and lost consciousness after a few minutes. He realized no one could see what had happened because he had been hidden from view by the depth of the trench. “It was really scary. I thought I’d just die,” said Mina, who lives in Free Union, Va. “I didn’t expect to be rescued. I didn’t even know if anybody could hear me screaming for help or if anybody knew I was trapped.” A few minutes later, Mina’s cousin, Eyan Alferos, went to tell him two pretty girls had arrived at the beach and wanted to hang out with them. He saw the sand was flat where the trench had been just moments before – and there was no sign of his cousin. Alferos, 26, immediately began to dig but at first was shoveling sand from the wrong spot. Then the sand began to collapse on him, as well, and he had to be pulled out by another cousin when the sand reached his waist. “There was a split second when I thought, `He’s not going to make it because he’s been down there way too long,”‘ Alferos recalled. “It’s a miracle he’s alive because his body shut down and he went unconscious. Who knows how long he was unconscious for?” MORE