The parents of a seven-year-old girl who died after being buried by sand on a Florida beach have set up a national campaign to help prevent similar tragedies happening in future.
Beachgoers at the scene in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea rushed to pull out the pair, but Sloan died after being taken to hospital.
She had reportedly been buried in the 1.8m (5ft 11in) deep pit for around 20 minutes. Her brother was also taken to hospital but was left in a stable condition.
Sloan’s mother Therese and father Jason have now set up a campaign encouraging families to build sandcastles when on the beach instead of digging potentially dangerous holes.
Mrs Mattingly said in a Facebook post raising awareness of the campaign: “Sloan’s legacy is of her heart and spirit, but is also a little bit this. Please stay safe and do NOT hesitate to speak up!”
The “Sandcastles For Sloan” campaign provides beachgoers with tips and advice to help prevent adults or children from becoming buried under sand.
It warns that “sand holes can collapse quickly” and advises people to “avoid digging deeper than knee height of the shortest person in your group”.
Image: Pic: Sandcastles For Sloan
Beachgoers are also advised to fill in holes after they are “done playing” to help keep other people safe.
Advertisement
Families are also urged to not let children put sand in their mouths.
A message with the campaign reads: “Sloan was a light in the world, a sweet little girl who loved dogs and the colour red.
“To honour Sloan’s memory, share this message with your beach community.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:59
From February: Girl killed in sand collapse on Florida beach
The Mattingly family, from Fort Wayne in Indiana, were on holiday when the tragedy happened.
Mrs Mattingly described her daughter’s death as a “freak accident” in a tribute shared on a GoFundMe page for the family in February.
She added: “It took away our greatest 7.5 years. Don’t tell us you’re sorry for our loss… don’t do that to us. We experienced the purest human being and we are forever changed by her.
“We love you beyond any stretch of the imagination. Our sweet Sloan. What we would give.”
Image: The Mattingly family. Pic: Facebook
The page raised more than $162,000 (£127,000) to help the family cover funeral costs and provide them with financial assistance due their period of grief.
Sloan’s uncle Chris Sloan, with the girl’s first name having been her mother’s maiden name, told KFOR-TV in February: “They were having a good time. Everybody was really excited to actually see them out there.”
He added: “Later we found out that after the sand had caved, [Sloan] kept trying to grab up Maddox’s leg to get up out of the sand, and eventually he couldn’t feel her moving anymore.
“The sand had been up to [Maddox’s] chest, and he was screaming for help, and a lot of people did come and help.”
There are no plans for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to meet in person in the near future, according to a White House official.
The US leader later shed further light on the issue when asked why his planned summit in Hungary had been put on hold.
He said he did not want to have a wasted meeting, telling reporters in the Oval Office he had not made a determination about the talks he had wanted to hold.
The US leader suggested it was possible it could happen within a fortnight, though no date was set.
However, it appears that’s now off the table – and there are fears the meeting could be shelved altogether due to Russia‘s rigid stance on the Ukraine war.
The White House official, speaking to Sky’s US partner network NBC, said secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov had spoken on Tuesday.
The call was described as “productive” but the official added there was no plan for the presidents to meet “in the immediate future”.
The last Trump-Putin meeting was in Alaska in August, but it ended without any meaningful progress towards a ceasefire.
The Budapest plan was announced shortly before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy travelled to Washington last Friday to try to get approval for long-range Tomahawk missiles.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
3:42
Why Tomahawks are off the table
Mr Zelenskyy accused the Russian leader of acting out of fear Ukraine could get the green light and the ability to hit targets far deeper into Russia.
In his nightly address on Tuesday, he said Russia “almost automatically became less interested in diplomacy” after it became clear Mr Trump had backed away from any decision on the Tomahawks.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
45:28
Professor Michael Clarke answers your questions on the Ukraine war.
Two US officials told Reuters that plans for the Budapest meeting had stalled over Russia’s insistence any peace deal must give it control of all of the Donbas region.
Those terms are said to have been reiterated over the weekend in a private communique known as a “no paper”.
Spotify
This content is provided by Spotify, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Spotify cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Spotify cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Spotify cookies for this session only.
Ukraine and European nations issued a joint statement on Tuesday insisting “international borders must not be changed by force” and accusing Russia of “stalling tactics”.
But, in an apparent effort to keep the US leader onside, it added: “We strongly support President Trump’s position that the fighting should stop immediately, and that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:59
Trump: ‘We can end this war quickly’
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov gave the impression his country was in no rush to arrange another Trump-Putin meeting, saying on Tuesday “preparation is needed, serious preparation”.
Such talk is likely to increase concerns Russia does not want to stop fighting and is “playing” President Trump – all while continuing to launch drone barrages at Ukrainian cities.
Russia currently holds about a fifth of Ukraine after its invasion in February in 2022. It also annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
Meanwhile, NATO’s secretary general Mark Rutte is travelling to Washington to meet with President Trump on Wednesday.
He will “discuss various aspects related to NATO’s support to Ukraine and to the US-led efforts towards lasting peace”, an official for the alliance said.
With Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s meeting in Budapest “on hold” for now, US correspondents Martha Kelner and Mark Stone unpick the US president’s latest position on the war in Ukraine.
Martha also chats to Huffington Post journalist SV Dáte about his run-in with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
As shows of diplomatic power go, this was a pretty good one. Here, in an industrial complex in the south of Israel that is rapidly being repurposed into a joint operations centre, America is taking centre stage.
A group walks in. At the centre is US Vice President JD Vance, flanked by omni-envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s unofficial emissary to the Middle East and official son-in-law.
And as if to prove just how much heft there is on show, the fourth person to walk in is Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of the US’s Central Command, in charge of a bewildering number of troops and the most powerful foreign military leader in the Middle East. But in this company, he barely said a word.
Image: JD Vance. Pic: Reuters
Mr Vance was composed, enthusiastic and conciliatory. During our drive down to the complex, near the town of Kirya Gat, we had read the latest statement from Donald Trump, released on the social media platform that he owns, threatening swingeing repercussions against Hamas. “FAST, FURIOUS AND BRUTAL,” he had written.
So often the echo of the president’s words, Mr Vance struck a more nuanced tone. Yes, he said that Hamas could end up being “obliterated”, but he also offered the group some support. Since the ceasefire was signed, Hamas has repeatedly said that it cannot easily recover the bodies of all the dead hostages. Mr Vance agrees.
“This is difficult. This is not going to happen overnight,” he said. “Some of these hostages are buried under thousands of pounds of rubble. Some of the hostages, nobody even knows where they are.”
He said it would have been unwise to set a deadline, insisting “we’ve got to be a little bit flexible” and even accused Israel, along with Gulf Arab states, of “a certain amount of impatience with Hamas”.
Image: (L-R) JD Vance, US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner. Pic: Reuters
I asked him if his visit was as a direct result of Israel’s actions on Sunday, responding to the deaths of two soldiers with attacks that killed dozens of Palestinians.
No, said Mr Vance, it had “nothing to do with events in the past 48 hours”. Many will remain dubious – this is his first visit to Israel as vice president, and, if the timing really was coincidental, it was very fortuitous.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
2:50
Ceasefire in fragile state
Then I asked him about the future of Gaza, about whether there really could be no safeguards that Palestinians would have a significant role in the future of the enclave.
I didn’t expect a long answer – and I certainly didn’t expect him to start by saying “I don’t know the answer to that question” – but that’s what we got.
“I think that what is so cool, what’s so amazing about what these guys have done, is that we’re creating a governance structure that is very flexible to what happens on the ground in the future. We need to reconstitute Gaza. We need to reconstruct Gaza,” he said.
“We need to make sure that both the Palestinians living in Gaza but also the Israelis are able to live in some measure of security and stability. We’re doing all of those things simultaneously. And then I think once we’ve got to a point where both the Gazans and our Israeli friends can have some measure of security, then we’ll worry about what the long-term governance of Gaza is.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:29
Trump says ceasefire still in place
While the words are different, and the tone is less didactic, the theme is familiar. The short-term gain is peace, while the long-term plan remains largely unaddressed and unformulated.
Work is being done on that front. Diplomatic sources tell me that the effort behind the scenes is now frenetic and wide-ranging, encompassing countries from across the region, but also way beyond.
But the questions they face are towering – who pays, who sets the rules, who enforces law, whose soldiers are the peacekeepers and what happens to all the displaced Gazans?
None of this will be easy.
Mr Vance, like Mr Trump, exudes confidence, and it has clearly inspired other leaders and their nations.
Few can doubt that Mr Trump’s iron-clad self-confidence has given life and momentum to this deal.
But that isn’t enough.
The diplomats, planners and, yes, the politicians have a lot to do.