(CITRONELLE, Ala.) -- Family, friends and an entire community are mourning the loss of an 11 year old boy. Daniel Gartman was killed Tuesday afternoon when an 84-ton boulder fell on him while he was playing with friends.
Susan Sullivan lives next to where the accident happened. "It was big huge rock. If you've ever seen the Lion King, how big it looked, that's what it looked like," she said. It's why kids loved to play there, adults say they remember coming here as children. Betsy Martin told us, "It was just a big place that we climbed. We just always climbed down here."
The boulder had been here at least 25 years, but Tuesday afternoon, it finally gave way, falling on top of 11 year old Daniel Gartman. Steve Huffman with Mobile Fire-Rescue told us, "They started digging where they thought the male was. He did not survive the cave in from this rock and this mud."
Sullivan told us, she's been afraid this was going to happen. "For so long. In fact, my grandkids were not allowed to play around the rock because I felt like this was going to happen."
The boys shoes and hat are still where they left them, a devastating reminder of the tragedy that took a child's life just a few days before Christmas. Sullivan just wishes kids hadn't been around when the boulder gave way. "I'm just so sad. My heart is just broke. My heart goes to the family at this time of the year, it is terrible."
