Freak accident at the beach sends teen to ICU as mom warns of waterfront danger

Fox News

a day ago

A teenager remains in intensive care after suffering severe injuries in a freak diving accident at Hampton Beach.
The incident happened on Monday afternoon in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, where 19-year-old Aiden Sloan and his cousins were playing in the water to beat the heat.
"He was diving into the water into the waves, I've done it a thousand times, and I think it was more shallow than he expected," Hampton Beach Fire Chief Michael McMahon told Fox News Digital.
Sloan's mom, Melina Burton, echoed McMahon and described the ordeal to Fox News Digital and what life has been like since she got word of her son's injury.
"They were diving into the waves like kids do," Burton described. "And there was a sandbar that nobody could have known was there, so he dove through a wave, and he hit the sandbar head-on."
Burton shared that Sloan's cousins also saw something had gone terribly wrong and dragged him to the beach, where they realized he wasn't breathing.
"He was just, like, not moving at all," one of Sloan's cousins told NBC10 Boston when the accident happened. "It was like we were carrying a dead body."
Burton said her son had been completely knocked out and if it was not for his cousins, he might not be alive today.
"They're actually really great kids, and they're handling it so well. I did check in with both of them. Michael, the one that actually pulled Aiden out of the water, was here yesterday. And I said, 'Can I give you a hug?'" Burton said.
"I said, 'I am so, so grateful to you for rescuing my boy and pulling him out of the water,' because he probably would not even be here today if you had not done that. So I will forever be grateful."
McMahon added that he had gone out on a similar call years ago, in nearly the exact same situation.
"So it didn't shock me, but it's not a regular occurrence for us, certainly. And it is unfortunate," McMahon said.
"Sometimes, we go to calls and people are doing dumb things and drugs and alcohol and this was not how we saw this. This was just a kid at the beach because it was hot, and he got hurt in a terribly unfortunate way."
A GoFundMe page has been set up for Sloan, where he is described as having suffered from a broken neck.
"He misjudged the depth of some water at Hampton and, as a result, broke his neck," the post read. "He is unable to move his legs and hands at this point but is able to move his arms. His mom, Melina, is a single mom and will need to be by her boy's side as he recovers."
Burton said it is too soon to tell if there is any permanent damage and said Sloan is just trying to be strong and take each day as it comes.
"The doctor met with him this morning just to kind of explain to him, one, the surgery that they did on him, and two, what exactly his injuries were. When they explained it to him the first time, he was so drowsy that he didn't really understand," Burton said.
"So they came back in this morning, they said that he has two things going for him. One, the fact that he's 19, young and strong, and two, that they were able to operate on him within 12 hours of the injury. So the prognosis we don't know yet, there's a lot of different factors."
Sloan, who is also a chef at a restaurant inside the Nash Casino, is receiving support from his employer, who is donating a portion of sales to his medical expenses.
"A member of our Greenleaf family, Aiden Sloan, unfortunately suffered a serious neck injury while having a fun day at Hampton beach earlier this week," Greenleaf Milford wrote in a post on their Facebook page.
"Aiden joined our Greenleaf family at a young age, and we watched him grow as a person and a cook over the years and he and his family have our full love and support during these difficult times."
Sloan is expected to remain in the hospital for several weeks before going to a rehab facility, Burton said, and is hopeful things turn around.
"They (doctors) ask him multiple times a day if he can move his hands and his fingers, if he could move his feet and toes, and if he can lift his knees. Or if he can feel anything in his midsection, and he gets very defeated and hopeless when he can't," Burton explained.
"And he doesn't understand why they keep asking him to try these things. So he's very tearful. He's very emotional today, which for anybody who knows Aiden, it is not who he is at all. He is always smiling and joking and happy. And even when, you know, life isn't going so great for him, he is still always just trying to make people laugh. So to see him so defeated and hopeless right now is really heartbreaking."
Stepheny Price is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. She covers topics including missing persons, homicides, national crime cases, illegal immigration, and more. Story tips and ideas can be sent to [e-mail]