OCEANA COUNTY, Mich — The parents of last year's Silver Lake sand dune victim, 12-year-old Noah Hasty, are speaking out for the first time about their experience and how their son is doing one year later.
"I have to get my son out, there's no other option," said Amy Hasty, Noah's mother.
Amy and her husband, Dan, recounted the day their son got trapped under the sand. "They kind of dug some different coves and different things that they were kind of just playing with, and then at one point, it must have just gotten too much for the dune to handle," Amy Hasty said. "It collapsed on Noah our 12-year-old son."
Noah's body was "lifeless, 14 minutes under the ground," Dan Hasty said. In the ambulance, and on the way to the hospital, the family heard a sound they still remember to this day. "You can hear different types of cries, and when I heard his cry, I knew it was mentally, it was him," Dan Hasty recalled.
This year, a 9-year-old boy from Fenton was also buried and later rescued from a similar situation on the Fourth of July weekend. Hearing about the recent incident brought a "sick feeling" for the Hasty parents, Dan Hasty said.
Ryan Schiller, the Undersheriff for Oceana County, noted the unique danger of the "powdery sand" in the dunes. "Kids being kids, they come out here and they explore right," Schiller said, adding that "oftentimes the holes get bigger than they had even imagined."
Schiller emphasized the inherent risks of digging in this particular area. "People just need to keep in mind that digging here at the sand dunes is, it's just inherently different than digging anywhere else," he warned.
A year later, the Hasty family says it's still a "challenge" to talk about what happened, but they are thankful for where their son is today. "I mean, he just loves to play sports and, he's a basketball player. Before the accident, he still works on that. It's more of a challenge now a little bit but he also loves fishing right now," Dan Hasty said.
The Hastys have even returned to the exact spot where Noah was buried, with Dan Hasty saying he returned to that exact spot at Silver Lake and is "just kind of making peace with it."
Schiller reassured that Silver Lake remains a fantastic place to visit, but urged visitors to stay vigilant and prioritize safety in the area.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy
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