Sloan died Tuesday after a sand hole she was digging with a little boy collapsed on them both, trapping the two on a Florida beach.
Emergency crews responded to Lauderdale-by-the-Sea around 3 p.m. and found the boy buried up to his chest in sand. The girl was completely buried underneath the sand.
Witnesses said the children were digging the hole and playing around before the ground gave way. The sand hole was about 5- to 6-feet deep, according to Sandra King, a spokesperson for Pompano Beach Fire Rescue.
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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The first deputies arrived about four minutes after the collapse, with paramedics and firefighters arriving moments later, according to 911 calls released by the Broward County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday.
Rescuers used support boards to keep sand from collapsing further in as they used shovels with the help of good Samaritans to dig the children out, King said. She said it wasn't clear how long they were buried.
The girl was rushed to Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, where she was pronounced dead, King said. The boy was hospitalized in stable condition.
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A GoFundMe account has been set up to help the family bring the child home from Florida and pay for funeral expenses. To donate, click here.
According to a 2007 report in New England Journal of Medicine, between 1997 and 2007, there were 52 documented instances of people who became buried in holes due to sand that collapsed, 31 of those cases resulting in death. The victims ranged in age between 3 and 21 years old.
Last week, a 2-year-old boy was playing on a New Jersey beach when the sand collapsed and buried him alive. The boy’s father was able to quickly save him from the sand pit.
