Girl, 7, buried alive while digging sand hold on Florida beach grabbed for her brother in terror in her final moments as sand fell on top of her before going still, grieving uncle says
The seven-year-old girl who died after being buried in a sand hole tried to save herself by grabbing her brother during her final moments.
Sloan Mattingly was pulled back 20 minutes after the sand collapsed around her and her brother, Maddox, on the beach at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.
Sloan’s grieving uncle, Chris Sloan, said the young girl kept trying to hold onto Maddox’s leg to get out of the sand, but eventually the boy stopped feeling her hold on him.
He described Sloan as a girl with “a lot of energy and just completely innocent.”
Chris continued KFOR that the family rarely went on vacation and constantly sent updates via the family group chat.
Maddox was rescued and taken to hospital in stable condition.
Chris Sloan, Sloan Mattingly’s grieving uncle, said the young girl kept trying to hold onto Maddox’s leg to get out of the sand, but eventually the boy could no longer feel her move.
He also described Sloan as a girl with a lot of energy and just completely innocent.
“She kept trying to grab Maddox’s leg to get out of the sand, but eventually he couldn’t feel her moving,” the uncle said.
‘She was always happy. She was a lot of fun to be around. She had a lot of energy and was completely innocent, and that’s what hurts the most about all of this.
‘They had a good time. They stayed in an Airbnb. Everyone was very excited to actually see them there.
“They don’t really go on vacation much, but they went to Ft. Lauderdale to the beach.
‘They posted photos in recent days that they distributed on social media.
“I got a text, like everyone else in the group chat, to call a number for a conference call.
‘When we all got off the phone, my brother David said, “Okay. What I have to tell you is going to be the worst news of your entire life.”
‘And it was. He said she had died, that Sloanie had died. Later we found out that the sand had collapsed afterwards. She kept trying to grab Maddox’s leg to get out of the sand, but eventually he couldn’t feel her move anymore.
‘The sand was up to his chest and he shouted for help, and many people came to help. There is indeed a video of that.
“As far as we know, she was unresponsive at the scene,” Chris said.
Sloan’s older brother Maddox was the first to be rescued from the hole and was taken to hospital in stable condition after also being injured in the collapse.
Their school in Indiana, Lafayette Meadows Elementary School, released a statement Wednesday mourning Sloan
A crowd gathered to help dig the children out until authorities arrived
Frantic passersby got down on their knees and dug with their hands in a desperate attempt to reach the girl
Harrowing 911 audio released this week revealed the frantic moments beachgoers tried to save Sloan after she was fatally buried.
A panicked witness can be heard telling a dispatcher how the mother of seven-year-old Sloan Mattingly desperately screamed, “My daughter is in there.”
“Everyone’s screaming,” the caller continued, as people in the background shouted, “They can’t see her head, they can’t see her.”
After about twenty minutes, the young girl was finally pulled from the sand on the beach at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea in Florida, but tragically succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.
A witness to the tragedy said ‘everyone 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, and a separate 911 call alerting officers to the beach noted about two dozen bystanders rushing to join the efforts to dig the girl out. of the sand.
The person who initially called 911 began by telling the dispatcher that there was “a group of people digging.”
She said she realized something was wrong when she “heard the father screaming for help,” who “said his child was stuck in a hole in the sand.”
“The mother shouts, ‘My daughter is in there,’” she continued. ‘Everyone is shouting.’
Panicked screams and shouts can be heard in the background of the audio, and the woman who called 911 broke her voice as she alerted dispatch, “They haven’t gotten the kid out yet.”
The family was visiting from Fort Wayne, Indiana when tragedy struck
Maddox was seen outside the hospital on Wednesday. He is pictured with his sister Sloan
She said she could not describe the exact situation because “everyone was surrounding the collapsed hole,” but noted that she could not see the young girl’s head above the sand.
“Oh, this mother… oh, this is terrible,” they said at the end of the conversation – seconds before a sad wail could be heard in the background.
The siblings, their father and mother Therese, 36, were visiting from Fort Wayne, Indiana when tragedy struck on Tuesday.
Panicked cellphone 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 to prevent more sand from falling on the children.
Sloan had no pulse when she emerged from the sand and was pronounced dead at the hospital, according to officials.
Although sand hole deaths are very rare, they are not unheard of and studies and warnings have been published about them.
People have left tributes for the seven-year-old on the beach in Fort Lauderdale
According to Dr. Stephen Leatherman of 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 is below the level of sand, the sand immediately begins to dry out.
“When people dig holes more than two feet deep and crawl into them, at least where their bodies are below the level of the sand, the sand immediately begins to dry out.
“And dry sand can only have a 33 degree angle and people dig these holes almost vertically.”
At that point, the sides of the hole usually begin to collapse very quickly and the sand begins to fall into the hole at an alarming rate.
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 causes a massive collapse.
“The deeper the hole, the greater the risk,” the expert said NBC.