I remember reading about an incident like this in AK yrs back, but the person died. This man was quite lucky, they used the same technique that is now used other places. So, public safety warning, beware mud flats and tides.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004404909_clamdigger10m.htmlHarold Thomas wasn't having any luck finding clams Thursday afternoon. So, the lifelong clammer ventured farther onto the mud flats at Penrose Point State Park on the Key Peninsula and started digging in the muck for a geoduck.
As he tried to wrestle a giant clam from its burrow, Thomas felt himself sinking. He pulled his right foot out of its rubber boot, but that just made his left foot sink deeper. As he tried to pull his left ankle free, Thomas' right foot became stuck in the mud.He tried to dig himself out with a shovel, but that didn't work. His wife, Carol, wrapped her arms around him and pulled. Nothing. Two women came to help, then a man and his son. Thomas didn't budge. And the tide was coming in.
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The boat arrived, but even then, rescuers couldn't pull Thomas from the mud. The water lapped at his shoulders.
Then Wolverton had an idea: "I don't know how it came to me," he said Friday. "... I don't think they all had faith in my theory. They all gave me the eyebrow." Wolverton connected a 200-foot long fire hose to the boat's fire pump. At the other end, he attached a 4-foot-long penetrating nozzle, a rod-shaped piece of equipment firefighters use to bust through roofs to pour water on a blaze. The firefighters stuck the nozzle into the sand around Thomas' legs, and the "turbulent action" from the pressurized water finally broke "the suction that was holding him there," he said... (more)