The life of a Florida family was turned upside down in just 20 minutes last week when the sand closed in on a 7-year-old girl who was playing on the beach with her brother, relatives lamented, recalling the sad accident.
“Don’t tell us you’re sorry for our loss… don’t do this to us. We experienced the purest human being and we are forever changed by her (…) what we wouldn’t give…” said Therese Mattingly, the mother of little Sloan Mattingly, according to relatives in a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign.
Tributes for the little girl, taken from life too early on Tuesday, have continued to follow one another on social networks in the last few days, while members of the family have spoken out to highlight the immense loss of the child. always happy,” in the words of her uncle Chris Sloan, on television channel KFOR.
“It was really fun being with her. She had a lot of energy and was completely innocent. “That’s what hurts the most about all of this,” he continued, according to the “New York Post.”
The accident occurred when the big hole that the girl was digging in the sand with her 9-year-old brother, Maddox, closed on the two children from Indiana, on vacation in Fort Lauderdale.
Caught up to the chest, the boy then shouted for help while his sister was deeper in the sand beneath him. He would have been quickly rescued by his father, but it would have taken around twenty minutes to extricate his sister’s body, in vain.
Rushed to the hospital, she reportedly died at Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale.
“We later learned that she kept trying to grab Maddox’s leg to get out of the sand, until he no longer felt her move,” her devastated uncle reportedly told KFOR. . They were having a good time. Everyone was really excited to see them (enjoying their vacation).”
The crowdfunding campaign raised more than $145,000 to help cover funeral costs, while helping the family “navigate a road that no family wants to even think about having to navigate,” it reads.
