Loved ones of a 7-year-old girl who died after being trapped under the sand at a Florida beach say they are “an abnormal” as the girl’s mother says her “sweet” daughter “changed their lives forever.” More heartbreaking details about the accident were revealed.
Sloane Mattingly was vacationing with her family in the Sunshine State of Indiana when tragedy struck.
Last Tuesday, the first-grader was digging a hole with her brother Maddox when the sand gave way and they were submerged under water for about 20 minutes.
Authorities and beachgoers desperately tried to rescue her, but Sloan later died at Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale.
The girl’s mother, Therese, remembered Sloan as “the purest human being” in a message posted on the family’s GoFundMe page.
“Yesterday, while we were here on vacation, a freak accident happened and our greatest seven and a half years were taken away from us,” she said. “Don’t say you’re sorry for our loss…don’t do that to us. We experienced the purest human being and were forever changed by her.
“We love you beyond imagination. Our sweet Sloan. What we will give.”
The total amount raised to help the family with funeral expenses exceeded $143,000.
The child’s uncle, Chris Sloan, told KFOR Sloan said she tried to “grasp” her 9-year-old brother’s feet “to get up out of the sand” but “eventually I couldn’t feel him move.”
“As far as we know, she was unresponsive at the scene,” a relative said.
Chris, who lives in Oklahoma, said he and other relatives received a group text message to dial into a conference call, where his brother broke the mysterious news.
“Everyone answered the phone and my brother David said, ‘Okay. What I have to tell you is going to be the worst news of your life.’ And it was.” He said she died, Slonie died too,” Chris told the news station.
“We later learned that after the sand caved in, she kept trying to get up from the sand by grabbing Maddox’s feet until Maddox could no longer feel her move. .
“The sand was up to my chest and I was screaming for help, and a lot of people actually came to help me.”
Maddox survived the terrifying incident because his father was able to pull him to safety.
The family, originally from Fort Wayne, Hoosier, rarely took vacations because his father worked in the painting business, Chris told KFOR.
“They were having a great time,” Chris said. “They were staying in an Airbnb. Everyone was really excited to actually see them on site.”
He remembered his niece as a child, who was “always happy.”
“She was really fun to be around,” he said. “She had so much energy and she was so innocent. That’s what hurt the most about this whole thing.”
