A man who witnessed the moments a sand hole swallowed and killed a young girl on a Lauderdale-by-the-Sea beach is speaking out about what he saw.
Harry Defina is still coming to terms with the tragic scene he came upon Tuesday, when 7-year-old Sloan Mattingly and her 9-year-old brother Maddox became trapped in the sand.
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"I see kids in the hole. I could see the boy a little bit, but all I can see… I’m not going to be able to finish this…all I could see was the top of the girl’s head," Defina said Thursday. "I saw the father was just beside himself."
Defina said he'd walked by the spot on the beach minutes earlier and noticed a man digging a hole in the sand.
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"I was walking by the beach and I saw a man, 40-ish years old, thin, medium height. He was digging a really big hole, like 5-by-5 and up to his chest. I looked at him and he looked back and I walked away, I didn’t think to go over and tell him not to do it," he said. "I'm even upset that someone would imply that those kids dug that hole. They didn’t dig that hole. It was massive and it ended up like 18-feet-by-6-feet.”
Cellphone video from a witness showed desperate beachgoers using their hands to dig sand out of the hole as they tried to rescue the kids trapped underneath.
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Both children were pulled from the hole and rushed to the hospital in critical condition but Sloan Mattingly died from her injuries.
"It's still such an upsetting episode to have been there," Defina said.
The Mattingly children were vacationing with their family from Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Friends of the family back in Indiana were shocked to learn the news.
"Our kids have hung out together, they’ve become friends, they've just become close to all of us," Joe Piwoszkin said. "This world has a whole range of different types of people and parents, and they’re one of the best."
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help ease the family's burden of planning her funeral.
"We experienced the purest human being and we are forever changed by her," Sloan Mattingly's mother wrote in the post.
Meanwhile, officials in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea said they're planning to hold a moment of silence for Sloan Mattingly at the Friday Night Music concert and at the Town Commission Meeting on Feb. 27.
"The sad news that seven-year-old Sloan Mattingly passed away earlier this week has left our entire community heartbroken. Our deepest condolences remain with the Mattingly family during this difficult time," the town said in a statement.
Officials added that the incident, along with the topics of lifeguards, ordinances, and requests for a memorial for Sloan, will be discussed at the Town Commission Meeting.