It wasn’t the average walk along the beach for one Milford Beach resident last Friday night when she found herself suddenly sucked into quicksand.
Luckily, Vanessa Bray was able to pull herself out.
Bray said her leg became completely swallowed up by the sand but she managed to flop herself onto her stomach, roll sideways and pull herself out.
She told AM it all happened very quickly and was "a bit of a shock".
By chance, a postcard Bray had on her wall as a child was how she was able to react so quickly.
"When I was a teenager, I had these postcards called 'worst case scenario' postcards and one of them was about quicksand, and it was on my bedroom wall next to my bed," Bray said.
She said she'd never come across quicksand in her 20 years going to Milford Beach.
"I don't think it'll happen again; I think it's just a combination of a whole lot of things but it's really good to be mindful about things like... incoming tides."
Bray's story comes after a dog had to be rescued from quicksand on Timaru's Caroline Bay last month.
Quicksand is sand saturated with water, so it behaves like liquid.
Environmental consultant Terry Hume told The Project last month quicksand was relatively common.
"It's liquefaction - pretty much similar to what you get after the Christchurch earthquakes," he said.
"Water comes up, it pushes those sand grains apart, it's all less dense and you just sink into it under the weight of your own body.
"Quicksand doesn't 'suck' - that's a misnomer - it's the weight of your body that takes you down."
He had some advice for anyone who became stuck.
"You're actually a lot lighter or a lot less dense than the quicksand so if you lie on your back, you should float and then you can slowly make your way out."
Watch the full video for more.
