The family of Sloan Mattingly is mourning the "happy" and "fun" 7-year-old girl who died after a sand hole collapsed on her in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.
"They took this from us," Mattingly's uncle, Chris Sloan, said in an interview over the weekend.
Mattingly was with her brother, Maddox, at the beach on Feb. 20 when the sand hole collapsed and they became trapped in the sand. Beachgoers tried to dig her out with their hands and plastic pails, but the hole kept collapsing on itself. Mattingly's brother survived, but she did not.
"She had a lot of energy and just totally innocent and, and that's what really hurts the most about this," Sloan said.
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In light of the tragedy, Lauderdale-by-Sea officials are set to discuss implementing several safety measures, including having lifeguards on the beach and a possible ordinance about digging sand.
Mattingly's uncle is hoping the tragedy can spur some change.
"It's been on all the channels, all the local channels back home — CNN, the Today Show, social media, TikTok," he said. "And you know, with that, it's like, OK, there's all this publicity around it. Can you channel that into making a change, having some type of purpose to it? Because otherwise all it is, is just there and I know that's what the parents would want."
"And it's not like it's the biggest thing out there. There, there are other threats, I get that," Sloan said. "But even if it saves one life, just to know about this story, to see her picture, to see what happened and to just keep somebody from digging a hole on a beach that's deep enough to cause this problem, that would be enough."
Mattingly's family, who is from Indiana, will hold her funeral this week.
