The family of a seven-year-old girl have spoken of their heartbreak at the youngster’s untimely death after being buried alive while on a Florida beach.
The mother of Sloan Mattingly said the family are ‘forever changed’ following the tragedy that occurred on Tuesday at Lauderdale-by-the Sea beach.
‘A freak accident happened yesterday while we are here on vacation and it took away our greatest 7.5 years,’ Therese Mattingly wrote on a GoFundMe page set up for the family which has raised $145,000.
‘Don’t tell us you’re sorry for our loss… don’t do that to us. We experienced the purest human being and we are forever changed by her.
‘We love you beyond any stretch of the imagination. Our sweet Sloan. What we would give.’
Sloan died after being buried inside a sand hole and tried to save herself by grabbing onto her brother, Maddox, during her final moments.
The family of a seven-year-old girl have spoken of their heartbreak at the youngster’s untimely death after being buried alive while on a Florida beach
The Mattingly family are pictured with nine-year-old Maddox, left, parents Therese and Jason and seven-year-old Sloan
Dad, Jason, posted a photo of the beach where the tragedy occurred the following day that saw a beam of sunlight shining down onto the shoreline
Floral tributes have been left close to the scene where the little girl lost her life
People have been leaving tributes for the seven-year-old on the beach in Fort Lauderdale
The Mattingly family expressed their profound heartbreak and shared the devastating incident on a GoFundMe page that has raised more than $140,000
It took 20 minutes to pull her out after the sand caved around her.
Sloan’s grieving uncle, Chris Sloan, said the young girl kept trying to hold onto nine-year-old Maddox’s leg to get out of the sand but eventually the boy could not feel her holding onto him anymore.
‘We found out that after the sand had caved. She kept trying to grab up Maddox’s leg to get up out of the sand and eventually he couldn’t feel her moving anymore’, Chris told KFOR.
He described Sloan as a girl with a ‘lot of energy and just totally innocent’.
‘She was always happy,’ Chris said. ‘She was really fun to be around. She had a lot of energy and just totally innocent, and that’s what hurts the most in all this.’
Chris further said that the family rarely took vacations and were texting updates on the family group chat.
‘They don’t really go on vacation much, but they went to Ft. Lauderdale to the beach,’ Chris said. ‘They’d been posting pictures the last couple of days they’ve been out there on social media.’
Maddox was rescued and was taken to the hospital in stable condition.
Sloan Mattingly’s grieving uncle, Chris Sloan said the young girl kept trying to hold on to Maddox’s leg to get out of the sand but eventually the boy could not feel her moving anymore
Uncle Chris Sloan described Sloan as a girl with a ‘lot of energy and just totally innocent’
‘She kept trying to grab up Maddox’s leg to get up out of the sand, and eventually he couldn’t feel her moving anymore,’ the uncle said
‘I got a text message as did everybody on the group chat to call a number for a conference call.
‘Once we all got on the line, my brother, David, said, ‘Ok. What I have to tell you is going to be the worst news of your entire life’.
‘And it was. He said that she had passed away, that Sloanie had passed away.
‘The sand had been up to his [Maddox] chest, and he was screaming for help, and a lot of people did come and help. There’s actually some video of that.
‘She was non-responsive at the scene is what we know,’ Chris said.
Sloan’s older brother Maddox was able to be rescued from the hole first, and was taken to hospital in stable condition after also being injured in the collapse
Sloan with her dad Jason, who said she was ‘full of life’
The family is seen on another holiday a few years back in a photo posted to Facebook
A crowd gathered to help try to dig the children out until the authorities arrived
Frantic passersby got on their knees and dug with their hands in a desperate attempt to reach the girl
The sand hole where seven-year-old Sloan died is seen taped off
Harrowing 911 audio released earlier this week revealed the frantic moments beachgoers attempted to save Sloan after she was fatally buried.
A panic-stricken witness can be heard telling a dispatcher how the mother of Sloan Mattingly, 7, was desperately yelling: ‘My daughter is in there.’
‘Everybody’s screaming’ the caller continued, as people cried out in the background: ‘They do not see her head, they do not see her.’
After around 20 minutes, the young girl was eventually pulled out of the sand at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea beach in Florida, but tragically succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.
A witness to the tragedy said ‘everybody is screaming’ after the sand hole Sloan was playing in collapsed, before dozens of bystanders rushed to help dig her out
Witnesses said the horror unfolded after Sloan and her older brother Maddox were playing in the hole when the ground gave way.
Separate audio of the 911 dispatcher alerting officers to the beach noted that around 20 bystanders had rushed to join the efforts to dig the girl out of the sand.
The person who initially called 911 began by telling the dispatcher there was ‘a bunch of people trying to dig.’
She said she realized something was wrong when she heard ‘the father yelling for help’, who ‘said his child is caught in a hole in the sand.’
‘The mom’s yelling, “my daughter is in there”‘, she continued. ‘Everybody’s screaming.’
Panicked screaming and yelling can be heard in the background of the audio, and the woman who called 911’s voice broke as she warned the dispatcher: ‘They have not gotten the child out yet.’
The family was visiting from Fort Wayne, Indiana when tragedy struck
Maddox was seen walking outside the hospital on Wednesday. He’s pictured with his little sister Sloan
Parents Jason and Therese are pictured above
She said she couldn’t detail the exact situation as ‘everybody is surrounding’ the collapsed hole, but noted that she couldn’t see the young girl’s head above the sand.
‘Oh, this mother… oh this is awful,’ they said at the conclusion of the call – seconds before a grief-filled wail was heard in the background.
The siblings, their dad and mom Therese, 36, were visiting from Fort Wayne, Indiana when tragedy struck.
Frantic cell phone footage showed a crowd of desperate beachgoers falling to their knees and using their hands to dig the children out of the sand.
Some tried to hold the walls back to stop more sand from collapsing in on the children.
Sloan did not have a pulse when she emerged from the sand and was declared dead at the hospital, according to officials.
Although sand hole deaths are very rare, they are not unheard of and there have been studies and warnings published about them.
Dad, Jason, had been updating the family on the progress of their vacation on social media
According to Dr. Stephen Leatherman from Florida International University’s Department of Earth and Environment, deep sand holes can be a death trap.
The expert explained that once a person’s body’s is below the sand level, sand starts drying out immediately.
‘When people dig holes more than two feet deep and get in them, at least where their body’s below the sand level, sand starts drying out immediately.
‘And dry sand can only hold a 33-degree angle and people dig these holes almost vertically.’
At that point, the sides of the hole usually begin to cave in very rapidly and sand begins to fall into the hole at an alarming speed.
Leatherman also pointed out that there is also a risk of someone stepping on the edge of a hole before the sand dries out and causing a massive collapse.
‘The deeper the hole, the greater the risk,’ the expert told NBC.