South Florida city bans digging deep holes in sand after girl’s death

While debate continues over whether Lauderdale-by-the-Sea will pay for lifeguards and whether the majority of residents even want them, elected officials have made digging deep holes in the sand illegal in an effort to prevent another tragedy after a 7-year-old girl died earlier this year when she was buried alive in the sand.

Sloan Mattingly, her 9-year-old brother and their parents were visiting Lauderdale-by-the-Sea from Indiana and arrived at the beach around 12:30 p.m. on Feb. 20. The children spent the day digging in the sand with a plastic shovel and bucket, and when they left the beach shortly after 3 p.m., Sloan and her brother Maddox “wanted to jump in the hole one last time,” according to an autopsy report released to the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Wednesday.

Sloan and Maddox ran and jumped into the four-foot hole, and the sand collapsed on them while Maddox stood upright. Sloan was completely buried under it, while Maddox was buried up to his chest.

Sloan was trapped in the sand beneath her brother for 30 minutes, the report said. When she was freed from the sand, she had no pulse and was pronounced dead at the hospital. The coroner ruled her death an accident.

New regulation

The commission recently passed an ordinance prohibiting digging holes deeper than 18 inches in the sand and prohibiting leaving the beach without completely filling the holes. The city also launched a beach safety campaign called “Sandcastles for Sloan” to warn people not to dig holes deeper than the knee height of the shortest person in the group.

The ordinance created three different violations: taking, removing, mining, or excavating sand from a dune or beach within the city; digging a hole or trench in the sand of a beach or dune that is deeper than 18 inches; and leaving a hole without completely filling it.

The city is considering hiring another law enforcement officer to serve as a “beach ambassador” responsible for enforcing all ordinances, including the new ones, Mayor Edmund Malkoon said in an email to the Sun Sentinel.

The penalties for any violations are not yet clear.

“If the commission decides to hire an additional law enforcement officer, he or she must be trained in appropriate enforcement of beachgoer regulations,” Malkoon wrote in the email. “Of course, fining someone who is only temporarily on the beach is different than doing so on private property. I also imagine it depends on whether or not the person cooperates. Perhaps you should educate and ask politely first.”

At an April 30 meeting where the commission discussed the ordinance, Vice Mayor Randy Strauss questioned whether it was necessary to change the city code or if they could simply enact a beach rule prohibiting digging. Commissioner Theo Poulopoulos said without the ordinance, there would be no way to enforce it.

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“At the end of the day, these are just words on a piece of paper that very, very few people will ever read, and all that really matters is whether or not there is some form of enforcement,” Poulopoulos said at the meeting.

At the June 6 commission meeting, Malkoon said that just days earlier, there were people who knew about the accident that killed Sloan, but were still digging trenches on the beach.

“A police officer went there, but he had no authority because we didn’t have that rule. So they said, ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ but they had no way to enforce it. This will give the BSO (Broward County Sheriff’s Office) and others the power to enforce that rule on our beach,” Malkoon said at the meeting.

Lifeguards still under discussion

City officials recently laid out three possible plans for lifeguards or beach patrols along their two-and-a-half-mile stretch of shoreline: an option in partnership with the sheriff’s office that would cost over $765,000 annually; lifeguards and marine rescue that would cost over $1 million annually; and beach patrol by law enforcement officers that would cost no more than $260,000 annually but would not provide medical aid or rescue.

In May, three people died on the beach and in June a man died, presumably by drowning.

On May 3, a man collapsed at the water’s edge. Officers from the Broward Sheriff’s Office of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea County, patrolling the nearby beach, responded immediately, according to a report from county commander Capt. William Wesolowski to City Manager Linda Connors in early June.

He was taken to Holy Cross Health in Fort Lauderdale, where he died, according to the report. The man and his wife, who were visiting from New York, were participating in a supervised snorkeling dive.

On May 22, witnesses saw a man in the water who appeared to be having difficulty with a boogie board and then fell facedown into the water, the report said. Bystanders pulled him from the water and began CPR. Pompano Beach Fire Department took him to Holy Cross Health, where he was pronounced dead.

On May 25, a 73-year-old resident of a nearby residential complex entered the water with a snorkel and mask, suffered a medical emergency, collapsed on the shore and was unresponsive, the report said.

People immediately began CPR and condo staff attempted to shock her with an automated external defibrillator. When officers arrived, they continued CPR, but Pompano Beach Fire Department pronounced her dead on the beach, according to the report.

Most recently, in mid-June, a man died after being rescued from the sea from imminent drowning.

At a commission meeting on May 28, ten residents spoke in favor of the lifeguards during the public hearing, some criticizing what they believed had not been done enough since Sloan’s death.

Father Peter Zougros of St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Fort Lauderdale told the commission he would preside over the funeral the next day for one of the men who died on May 22, a 52-year-old father and husband whose family is “terribly grieving.”

“It’s gotten to the point now where we really don’t feel safe sending people here anymore,” he said of his usual recommendation for tourists to go to Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.

Local resident Brian Paperny said he remembers a man on the beach warning him as a child not to dig deep holes and pointing out the dangers involved.

“It’s been 90 days and I don’t know what actions have been taken. So it seems to me at this point, after the recent death, that something needs to be done. We’re past the question of ‘should we or should we not.’ Now it should be about what we’re going to do and how we’re going to implement it,” Paperny said.

Robert Karley, a resident who was formerly a member of the city’s volunteer fire department, said at the meeting that during his volunteer patrols of the beach he had repeatedly seen people buried up to their necks in holes in the sand and that it had been a difficult task to pull them out and cover the holes.

“Something has to be done, something more efficient than what we are doing now,” Karley said.

The city asked residents and businesses to complete a beach safety survey that was completed in late June. The survey results will be presented at Tuesday’s city commission meeting, Malkoon told the Sun Sentinel.

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