A Long Island woman walked into her own backyard on her 47th birthday and the lawn dropped out from under her. Danielle Tammone fell about eight feet into a narrow hole of water, mud and roots in Bohemia, New York, on Thursday, September 17, 2026, and spent roughly half an hour screaming for help before two neighbors heard her and called 911.
Firefighters and police used a ladder pulled from a nearby garage to bring her up. She walked away from the scene, later reporting whiplash and pulled muscles. What opened up under her grass is still not officially settled.
Story Snapshot
- Tammone dropped about eight feet into a backyard hole in Bohemia on her 47th birthday.
- Two neighbors heard screams and called 911; responders lowered a ladder to get her out.
- She was trapped for about 30 minutes and said she feared being buried alive as the ground kept sinking.
- Reports describe the hole as an old well or overflow cesspool; no official cause has been released.
Where This Stands Right Now
As of Saturday, September 19, 2026, no agency has published a finding on what the hole was. Coverage from the New York Post and local stations points to an abandoned cesspool or well, the kind of buried feature common under older Long Island yards. The property’s history and the hole’s exact structure are the open questions; the rescue itself is not in dispute.
Thirty Minutes In The Hole
Tammone said the ground sank “slowly” at first, then gave way. She landed in standing water with mud and tangled roots and could not climb the walls. She shouted until the neighbors heard her. Police officers arrived first, grabbed a ladder from a garage, and guided her up while firefighters and EMTs worked the edge of the hole.
One local outlet said she had no obvious injuries at the scene; others reported the whiplash and pulled muscles she described afterward. Responding departments were not named in the coverage, and no incident report has been released.
Why Long Island Yards Do This
Long Island sits on loose sand, gravel and clay left by glaciers, and much of Suffolk County still runs on cesspools rather than sewers. When an old cesspool or dry well is capped and forgotten, water works through the fill around it until the lid or the soil above it gives way. The failures are sudden and usually invisible from the surface until someone steps on the wrong spot.
Homeowners can check county records for old septic or well locations, watch for soft or sagging patches after heavy rain, and have any suspected structure inspected before anyone walks over it.
What Happens Next
The hole will need to be located on the property’s records, filled and inspected. Tammone has said she is grateful to the neighbors who heard her; without them, she said, she believed she would have been buried in her own yard.
Sources:
nypost.com, longisland.news12.com, cbsnews.com, people.com, greaterlongisland.com
