Seven-year-old Kentucky girl buried alive while having fun in a hole on a South Florida beach

Maddox and Sloan When Mattingly from Indiana felt the smooth sand between his toes, he did what children do. They dug and began to play.

But at the beach in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, the sand had a mind of its own and ate the two siblings. Maddox, 9, is currently struggling for his life in the ICU, while Sloan, 7, passed away.

The children’s friends and family are still attempting to make sense of the “freak accident” that claimed the life of the “purest human being.”

Therese and Jason Mattingly packed up their two children, Maddox, 9, and Sloan, 7, and left Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the middle of February to spend time with relatives in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida.

On February 20, the family was at the beach creating memories before 3 p.m. Beside their guardians, the children were having fun in a large sandhole.

The family vacation then left them with a memory that none of them desired.

Someone on the beach noticed people rapidly excavating into a hole and said, “Everyone is screaming!” before dialing 911.

“There’s a child that they’re trying to get out,” the caller stated, according to People. After that, the caller claimed to have heard the kids’ father “yelling for help because his child is caught in a hole in the sand.” “My daughter’s in there!” the mother cried as she was talking on the phone.

The siblings were being buried alive, and Sloan and Maddox were trapped in the sand pit.

According to NBC, when many emergency services got on the site, they helped Sloan and her brother escape the large hole using shovels and planks to prevent the sand from going farther. How long they were imprisoned before being released is unknown.

Sloan passed away at the hospital after both children were admitted.

We don’t currently know how Maddox’s recuperation is progressing, although he was reportedly in severe condition.

“We were on vacation here when a horrible catastrophe happened yesterday, taking away our finest seven and a half years. Please refrain from apologizing to us for our loss.On the GoFundMe page created to provide financial support for the family, her mother says, “We met the purest person, and she changed us forever.” “There is nothing in the world that we love more than you.” Sloan, our beloved. What we would provide.

According to the GoFundMe campaign, “What began as an amazing family trip quickly turned into the devastatingly tragic death of their 7-year-old daughter/sister Sloan,” the project has raised about $146,000 of its $150,000 target. Your gift will assist in bringing Sloan home from Florida, covering her burial expenses, and relieving some of their financial strain as they adjust to their new circumstances. We are aware that money cannot buy back the lovely Sloan.

Love letters for the “sweet girl” who “was SO much bigger than her last moments” are pouring in at the same time.

A family friend, Whitney Kanjala, emails a photo of the family taken outside Sloan’s Luxury Ice Cream Shop in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. in addition to the photo on her. “She was the funniest friend you could ever ask for, the most devoted sister, the smallest yet most acrobatic kid, and one of the best things Therese and Jason Mattingly ever made,” the writer wrote on Facebook about her.

On February 22, Sloan’s father posted the identical photo, writing, “We took Sloan to this ice cream shop with her name on it.” We took advantage of the unfavorable weather that day. We also performed karaoke in our Airbnb and visited a neighboring arcade.

Residents are “shocked” and “devastated.”
“I’ve lived here 50 years and I’ve never seen anything like that,” a resident told CBS. There are currently no lifeguards on duty at the beach.It shocks me. I’m in complete astonishment. I had no idea that there was a chance anything could go wrong when you were excavating and it would fall on someone enjoying themselves on the sand.

An other local provided his own interpretation on the hole’s nature.

Thirty minutes before to the tragedy, Miami resident Harry Defina told NBC Miami, the children were playing in a hole that a guy had already excavated.

“I saw a man digging a huge hole up to his chest as I was strolling along the beach.” After observing him turn to face me, I turned to go. Defina remarked, “I didn’t think to go over and tell him not to do it.” “That someone would say those kids dug that hole enrages me.” No hole was excavated there. Measuring around eighteen feet by six feet, it was enormous.

“I see kids in the hole,” he sobs as he describes what he observed when the children were buried. The youngster was hardly visible to me. It was all I could see.The girl’s head was all I could see, so I was unable to complete this.

Because of the incident—which is currently under investigation by the police—the American Lifeguard Association also released a warning about the potential hazards associated with sand holes.

The association’s head of health and safety, Bernard J. Fisher II, says the recent tragedy in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea is a tragic reminder of how crucial it is for everyone to cooperate in order to preserve our beaches. We can prevent tragedies like this from happening again and ensure that everyone can continue to enjoy and feel secure on our beaches by adopting these actions and raising awareness in our community.