Maddox and Sloan Mattingly, who was from Indiana, was doing what any youngster does at the beach: playing in the sand. They started to dig and play.
But the sand at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea beach came to life and swallowed the two siblings. Sloan, 7, died, and her brother Maddox, 9, is in the ICU battling for his life.
The kids’ parents and family are now struggling with the “freak accident” that took the life of the “purest human being.”
Therese and Jason Mattingly drove their two sons, Maddox, 9, and Sloan, 7, from Fort Wayne, Indiana, where it was very chilly in the middle of February, to the sunny beaches of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida.
The family was at the beach making memories before 3 p.m. on February 20. The kids were playing in a large hole in the sand next to their parents.
But the family trip left them with a memory they didn’t want.
“Everyone is screaming!” shouted a person on the beach. after seeing folks quickly slide into a hole and contact 911.
The caller told dispatch, “They’re trying to get a child out,” people say. The caller then said that she heard the kids’ father “yelling for help because his child is stuck in a hole in the sand.” The caller reported that the woman started yelling, “My daughter’s in there,” while she was on the phone.
The sand hole was burying both Sloan and Maddox alive, and they couldn’t get out.
Tried to save
NBC said that a number of emergency personnel arrived and used support boards to block the sand from falling any farther. Then they used shovels to get Sloan and her brother out of the enormous hole. No one knows how long they were stuck before someone helped them.
Later, Sloan died at the hospital, where both kids were taken.
We don’t know how Maddox is doing right now, but he was in bad shape.
“A freak accident took away our best 7.5 years while we were on vacation yesterday.” Don’t say you’re sorry for what happened. Please don’t do it. There is a GoFundMe campaign to help the family with money. Her mom wrote, “We met the most pure person, and she changed us forever.” “We love you more than you can know.” Our beautiful Sloan. What we would give.
The GoFundMe campaign, which has raised almost $146,000 of its $150,000 goal, says, “What started as an amazing family trip quickly turned into the devastatingly tragic loss of their 7-year-old daughter/sister Sloan.” We know that no amount of money will bring beautiful Sloan back, but your donation can help bring Sloan home from Florida, pay for the burial, and ease the family’s financial burden while they adjust to their new life.
Friends and family are sending messages of love for the “sweet girl” who “was SO much bigger than her last moments.”
A family friend named Whitney Kanjala shares a picture of the family in front of Sloan’s Luxury Ice Cream shop in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. There is a picture of the family with her name next to it. “She was the funniest friend you could ever ask for, the most loyal sister, the [tiniest] yet most acrobatic… and one of the best things Therese Mattingly and Jason Mattingly ever made,” she said on Facebook.
On February 22, Sloan’s dad posted the identical image with the caption, “We took Sloan to this ice cream shop with her name on it.” We made the best of the day, even though it was raining and not very nice. We also sung karaoke at our Airbnb and went to a nearby arcade.
People in the region were “devastated” and “shocked.”
“I’ve lived here for 50 years and have never seen anything like that,” one neighbor told CBS. There are no lifeguards on the beach right now. “I’m shocked.” I’m in shock. I didn’t know that digging a hole may make things fall apart and hurt someone who is just sitting out and playing on the beach.
Someone else from the region talked about their thoughts about the hole.
Harry Defina, who lives nearby, told NBC Miami that the youngsters were playing in a hole that a guy had dug just 30 minutes before the disaster.
“I was walking on the beach when I saw a man digging a hole that was as deep as his chest.” “I saw him, and he saw me. I left. “I didn’t think to go over and tell him not to do it,” Defina said. “I’m even mad that someone would say those kids dug that hole.” That hole wasn’t made by them. It seemed big, but it was just 18 by 6 feet.
Defina fights back tears as he talks about what he saw when the kids were buried: “I see kids in the hole.” I could see the boy a little bit, but all I could see was, “I can’t finish this.” I could only see the top of the girl’s head.
The authorities are looking into what happened right now, and the American Lifeguard Association has also alerted people about the dangers of sand holes.
“The recent incident in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea is a heart-wrenching reminder of why we must work together to keep our beaches safe,” said Bernard J. Fisher II, the association’s director of health and safety. “We can stop more tragedies from happening and keep our beaches safe and fun for everyone by doing these things and making a community of safety and awareness.”
The group wants increased beach patrols in areas where people are known to dig in the sand.
Rest in peace, little one. It’s so awful that something so bad happened to kids who were just having fun.