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

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 d...