A heartbreaking 911 call has revealed the panic at the beach after Sloan Mattingly, 7, was fatally buried by a collapsed sand hole at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea beach in Florida.
One of the beachgoers can be heard telling a dispatcher how the girl’s mother was desperately shouting: “My daughter is in there.”
The witness continued: “Everybody’s screaming. They do not see her head, they do not see her.”
After 20 minutes, Sloan was finally pulled out of the sand but she was declared dead on arrival at hospital.
Shocked witnesses said the tragedy happened after the young girl and her older brother were playing in the hole when the ground collapsed.
The woman who initially contacted 911 told the dispatcher that there was ‘a bunch of people trying to dig.’
She said that she realized that something was wrong when a father started yelling for help.
“The mom’s yelling, ‘my daughter is in there.’ Everybody’s screaming,” she expressed.
Yelling and screaming can be heard in the background and the caller’s voice broke as she said: “They have not gotten the child out yet.”
The woman said that she could not describe the exact situation as there were many people around the collapsed hole but added that she could not see the child’s head.
“Oh, this mother… oh this is awful,” she said.
The family were visiting from Fort Wayne, Indiana, when the incident occurred on Tuesday.
Cell phone videos also showed desperate beachgoers using their hands to dig the siblings out of the sand.
But when Sloan was finally pulled out, she did not have a pulse and was pronounced dead at the hospital. Her brother was seen walking outside the hospital.
Lafayette Meadows Elementary School issued a heartbreaking statement on Wednesday.
It read: “t is with a heavy heart that I write this letting you know we lost a precious member of the Lafayette Meadows school family.
“Sloan Mattingly was a bright, sweet, loving 1st grade student in Ms. Vanbrocklin’s class. Sloan passed away on Tuesday.”
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