Getting Trapped in Quicksand Won This Guy a Girlfriend

What started as a terrifying near-death experience turned into a rom-com-style love story. 

Best friends Mitchell O’Brien and Breanne Sika were strolling the beautiful Lake Michigan shoreline when O’Brien decided to search for rocks near the water. Seems harmless enough. Perhaps even romantic, though the two had never confessed any sort of feelings for each other.

However, as O’Brien continued sorting through stones, he suddenly stepped on a soft spot of sand and—to his horror—quickly began to sink. 

Getting Trapped in Quicksand Turned This Pair From Friends to Lovers

In just a short moment, the Michigan man found himself struggling to get out of the hole he was sinking into. Though he tried to kick his way out of the waist-deep muck for 15 minutes, reassuring Sika that he was fine, he eventually realized he needed help.

“The sand was just getting put back almost faster than I could get it out of the way,” O’Brien told NBC News.

“To me, those moments were terrifying, honestly,” Sika added of the ordeal. 

You might be wondering…when, exactly, did the friends-to-lovers trope kick in? 

Well, as both O’Brien and Sika separately called for help, they realized something.

“I referred to her as my girlfriend [who’s] trying to call [911] as well, at the exact same time, she got through to another operator and said, ‘My boyfriend is stuck in the sand,’” O’Brien explained.

It dawned on them that perhaps there were deeper feelings between them than either had previously acknowledged.

Thankfully, firefighters arrived at the scene and were able to pull O’Brien to safety. Though a happy ending in and of itself, the two “friends” are also now officially a couple—all because of a little “sand and muck.”

“Two years of this guy being my best friend and just trying to hide how I felt, and he tried to die on me—and becomes my boyfriend in the middle of it,” Sika told NBC News.