The grieving parents of Sloane Mattingly, the seven-year-old girl who died when a giant sand pit collapsed, say they were known to be “overprotective” and would not allow her to face such dire danger. He said he had “never, never” imagined such a thing.
His mother, Therese Mattingly, said on “Good Morning America” that she was still “completely in shock” about how the tragedy of her 9-year-old son being buried and then brought out alive suddenly unfolded before their eyes. I don’t know.” It was a “perfect” day at the beach in Florida last month.
“Most of us are the kind of people that other parents and family members look at because we’re a little overprotective and overthink everything,” she said.
“When we go to the beach, we think about water safety,” she said.
“And it never once crossed my mind.”
Speaking from their home in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the parents said they could do nothing as the hole suddenly caved in, even though they were just a few feet away.
“It was kind of a blur, and maybe I was thinking that in my head to protect myself, but it happened so fast,” she said, trying desperately to rescue her daughter as other beachgoers raced around. However, Sloan’s father, Jason, managed to pull his son to safety. he steps in to help.
“In my mind I was holding her in my hands, but the weight of the sand was too much.”
“It didn’t matter if we were literally there or not,” Therese added. “It was just a hole. And nothing.”
It took rescuers 20 minutes to pull Sloan out, but by the time they arrived at the hospital it was too late.
“Everyone tried so hard. And unfortunately, it didn’t work out in our favor,” father Jason told “GMA.”
Grieving parents remembered their first-grade daughter as a “ray of light” and pure “joy” who loved Taylor Swift and made friendship bracelets for loved ones.
“She would come out in the morning and do a fist pump as soon as she got out of bed,” Therese said, adding that she and her brother were “natural best friends.”
Maddox “suddenly” became an only child, and his mother said she was doing everything she could to help him grieve and adjust.
When asked how he was doing, he replied, “I think he’s doing pretty well.” “We have a lot going on to help him with that and for us to help him.”
“I think he’s always going to be a little different right now, but we’re doing what we need to do to make sure he gets the help to deal with this and move forward with Sloane in mind. I’m willing to do anything,” Jason added.
The family hopes that by telling the story of what happened to Sloan, they can prevent the same thing from happening to other families.
“I don’t know what steps to take for that to happen: signs, lifeguards, patrols,” Therese said. “But I hope we can make some changes from here.”
From 1997 to 2007, there were 52 cases where people were buried in holes caused by collapsed sand, and 31 of them died. According to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The victims ranged in age from 3 to 21 years old.
