Return From Havasu

An 18-year-old girl was swept over a 15-foot waterfall and survived only with the help of skilled rescuers. This is a story of a miracle that happened on a summer river trip in the Grand Canyon in 1998.
The accident occurs on the second to last day of a six-day trip down the river, in a side canyon named Havasu. This account is written from two points of view. The first is from the rescuer, (Tiffany George) and the second is by the victim (Sylvia Leimkuehler).

Tiffany
The afternoon went as usual, ran into Kenton and the crew up above, had a good chat and decided to rendezvous with them below the Zoo to drop them off some ice and some food. We had taken everyone to the “Ruby Pools” area and set a return time at which we were to meet at the first crossing and return as a group back to the boats. I believe it was 3:00 pm. Sylvia, an 18-year-old lifeguard from Ohio, (probably 110 lbs., soaking wet with all of her clothes on), had headed up the canyon to go see Beaver Falls. She wasn't hiking alone—another 18 year-old male passenger, Derek, and Kim, a 40 year-old man from Tucson (a very experienced Grand Canyon hiker) went with her. We were looking at our watches at ten minutes to 3:00 wondering which one of us should go up and seek them out when they came around the corner, right on the nose at 3:00 pm. Perfect ending to a perfect afternoon. Or so I thought.
I told everyone to gather his or her things and we would start off back to the boats. At this point we were just below the first crossing on creek left awaiting their return. The three of them came down towards us, and I instructed them to cross a little bit higher as it was shallower there. The two guys crossed without incidence and never went into water that was above knee-deep. Sylvia was the next to cross; she entered the water at exactly the same place and began crossing. I was sitting next to another guide, Brenda, chatting when I heard some excitement and glanced back at the creek to see Sylvia face down, feet first, heading toward the falls. I yelled to her to get out of the water, thinking she was just horsing around and cooling off. When she didn't respond panic set in and I was already on my feet, screaming her name, when she caught the current that sucked her over the edge of the waterfall. I was already running for the pool below.
Tearing off my bum pack and throwing it on the ledge with my shirt, I scrambled my way through the boulders down to the pool. Suddenly everything was different—complete havoc at light speed! She didn't flush out the bottom! Kim, the guy who had taken them up the canyon, was on top of the boulder to river right of the falls, screaming hysterically, calling her name, and sobbing. I dove under the water to try and pull myself along the bottom to get to her, only to find myself at the surface three feet further back, sans shoes. The water was just clearing from a flood so it was cloudy but not brown. I dove again and again only to find the same result—no Sylvia. I yelled up to Kim, who was sobbing and screaming her name, “Do you see her?” “No,” he sobbed. Then I yelled at him to shut up so I could hear if someone else had seen her. I looked around me and noticed that Bob, her dad, was also next to me, across the current and diving for her as well.
I told Kim's son (all of 14 years-old) to position himself at the bottom of the pool, not too close to the vortex of the next falls but close enough to the current so that he could catch her if she washed out. It was then, when I looked back to the waterfall, that I saw movement, I swear I saw reaching up through the falls, an arm! I couldn't be certain because the moment was so frantic and my mind was racing a million miles per hour; but it was enough motivation for me to yell to another guide to get a rope or a long branch to reach to her in the waterfall. At this point it was going on two minutes that she had been under. Ian, the other guide, ran up the trail and was twenty feet over my head when I heard someone shout, “There she is! There she is!” I turned to my left and saw her floating, face down and lifeless towards the lower end of the pools and another small series of rocky falls. I screamed to the young guy in the pool, “Grab her!” He held out his arms and she floated lifeless into them. If I thought I was frightened earlier, I was truly horrified now!
Kam, another Western guide, and myself raced over to the young guy, grabbed her up and carried her over to the side of the creek and onto a ledge on river left. We laid her on her back and for a split second I was waiting for her to respond, but there was nothing. I kept thinking “ok, cough and puke like they do on the movies, c'mon Sylvie, cough and puke,” but nothing happened.
From this point on it was very surreal. I looked at her face. She had a laceration from the outer corner of her left eye clear over to her hairline. She had bitten through her bottom lip (just under it) and her lower lip had then been torn on something, probably the sharp travertine. One of her front teeth had been pushed all the way back in her mouth; her left cheekbone was puffy and discolored, and there was dark blood, mixed with Havasu water, running down her face. But the most remarkable feature were her eyes, staring and fixed—Doll's eyes.
Then she went from whitish blue to blue blue. My next words were, “Ok, she's cyanotic.” I felt as if I were in some sort of trance and everything was happening in slow motion. In my mind I was thinking, “You're not going to die on my trip, not today,” and I was pretty determined. Ian reached in and felt for a pulse on her carotid and replied, “no pulse.” I wasn't surprised but I think I chilled just the same. About the same time I opened her airway, squished her mouth together, (trying to get a good seal was difficult due to the trauma), and blew. I was amazed at how easily her lungs inflated, and when her lungs deflated there was a terrible moan, empty and hollow, yet she was still unresponsive. Kam was jumping into position to do chest compressions; Ian and I both yelled, “not yet!”
With new found strength, I repeated the breath, this time her eyes flew open wide as her lungs deflated but her pupils were still unresponsive. I was yelling at her, “C'mon Sylvie, breathe!” I held my breath, then she gasped, closed her eyes, opened them again, pupils dilated and constricted and she said, “I had the strangest dream. I dreamt that you all were standing over me calling my name but I couldn't answer you.” I could feel the hairs standing on end up and down my spine when I heard her father, standing right next to me, say, “It's Daddy Sylvie, it's ok, I'm right here.”
I think that is when I snapped back into reality because I thought, “my God, how long have you been standing here and how much of this did you actually see?” He saw it all. My heart ached for him; it was not pretty. I looked up at the cliff above me to see that Brenda had rallied her family together and taken them out of line of sight of all the action. I was grateful. They looked terrified. I told them she was breathing on her own and you could see some relief in their faces as they continued crying and holding each other.
Ian asked me what I needed as he was headed for the trail, I shouted back, “Backboard, Doctor's kit, ice, and a helicopter!” I then assessed her further to find a large hematoma on the back of her skull, just right of center, lacerations that went from her left hip down her leg, she also complained of intense pain in her left knee. The cuts on her leg seemed mostly to be superficial but jagged with the occasional deep spot. The facial/head trauma seemed to be the worst of it.
As her color returned so did the swelling in her face and her cheekbone was huge. We got her strapped down to a backboard, I held traction on her head, and we took her back across the pool, up through the boulders, and across the creek. I was barefoot at this point having had my thongs blown off my feet from the force of the water. My bare feet were rolling off the rocks and I stopped and asked if I could borrow someone's shoes. Someone brought me a pair of thongs, and oddly enough, they were mine!
We took her back over to the ledge I had started out on. I sent everyone down to the boat, except her family, and administered to her wounds. She was in tremendous pain and I bade her not to cry, as it would increase the swelling in her face. She was very brave. We did some breathing exercises I had used teaching Stress Management classes and it seemed to work. I told her to stay with me when she seemed to be fading out.
The wait for the helicopter seemed like an eternity. Her family stayed and her mother, father and I were all together, with Sylvia in the middle, and me still holding traction on her head. When I changed the dressing on her face to add ice, Rosie, her mom, was sitting next to her. I warned, “Ok mom, she does have a bit of a cut near her eye,” she did a great job of keeping it together when she saw the “cut” (a two inch laceration—eye to hairline) so as not to upset Sylvia, it took a lot of courage.

It was a good hour and a half before the helicopter arrived. There was actually some discussion on part of the helicopter staff about Rosie going out with her. They gave us some story about weight limits and such, the two of them together weighing maybe 220 lbs. This added another whole level of anxiety to an already stressful situation. Rosie calmly, but resolutely stated, “I am going out with my daughter.” I certainly wouldn't have argued with her, she meant business. Thankfully, Ian got that resolved.
They moved her to their own backboard and then some real work began—we had to fire line her over the pinchy part of the trail, all the way back to the helicopter. She was very fearful, (as was I), but very brave. I gathered up a few volunteers, and stipulated no heroics. We then began the painstaking process of maneuvering Sylvia, strapped to a backboard, over a trail that was narrower than she was currently. And just to compound things, the trail ran alongside a sheer cliff that was about 40 feet high; a fall from here would have proven fatal. I was sweating bullets. The entire time I stayed at her head coaching her through the breathing exercises, trying to keep her focused, and she managed to go to the helicopter somewhat tear-free. I was relieved to see her get loaded into the helicopter, Rosie alongside her. Bob and Rosie exchanged some words, and hugs, outside the helicopter door as I turned and headed back up the canyon. It was an autonomic response; I just needed to get out of there. Looking at my watch I was taken aback to see that it was only two hours from when she first slipped over the edge of that waterfall. It was my first opportunity to be alone and just let it all start to sink in. I walked for the first 100 yards, then took off on a sprint. I don't know why I was running—I was just compelled. I went back to the scene and looked around for some lose items, although I knew there weren't any, and started back up the trail. When I got to highest point directly above the falls, I stopped to have one more look at the pool and waterfall, and as I turned to walk back to the boat, I thought to myself, “It doesn't look like a place somebody could die in.”
Sylvia became ill and had to ride out the remainder of the flight on her side. Once in Flagstaff she had another lucky break, a plastic surgeon (waiting for an absent patient) was there and did a remarkable job of sewing her up. She was able to fly to Las Vegas and meet her father and brothers at the end of the expedition. She continued to recuperate both physically and psychologically over the next few months. Her parents flew us all out to Ohio so that our last image of Sylvia wouldn't be the one of her getting loaded on to the helicopter. It was a very wonderful, cathartic trip.
Sylvia continues to get better all the time and is a junior in Wooster College now. I still talk to her and actually skied with the Leimkuehler's last season, they are a very remarkable family and I love them a lot. Words cannot describe the connection I have with Sylvia, and always will; she is an incredible young lady. I have tremendous respect for her.
Sylvia
I was hiking in Havasu Canyon on the trip that I thought was the best experience of my life. It turned out to be the best experience of my life in the end. It was very hot that day and Kim, Derek, and I hiked what seemed like forever. We made it to Beaver Falls and it was beautiful. Unfortunately we only stayed for a few minutes because we had to start heading back to make it to the meeting point by 3:00. We hiked very quickly on the way down and all three of us were exhausted when we finally reached the others at exactly 3:00. My brothers were jumping off the rocks into a pool below and everyone was relaxing across the pool.
Derek and Kim crossed over and I followed. As I was walking the water was cloudy and I stepped on a large rock. My ankle turned and I fell down into the water. The current was pulling me and I could not stand up. I tried as hard as I could to stand but the water was too strong. I managed to grab hold of a rock at the top of the waterfall and held on for a few seconds. I was looking across at my family and the others on the trip yelling for help but I could not hear them. The rock I was holding on to was very sharp and the water was rushing over my body with my legs hanging over the waterfall.
All at once I went over and I do not remember anything for about five seconds. I must have been knocked slightly unconscious as I went over. The next thing I knew I was under water and my leg was trapped in something. I could not see the top of the water and realized that I was trapped. I have had lifeguarding and cpr training and I knew that if I took even one breath of water in I would fill my lungs with water and drown immediately. I kept saying to myself “don't breathe in, don't breathe in.” As I was doing this I was also trying to reach up because I knew they did not know where I was and if only I could get my arms high enough someone would see them and pull me out. At this time I was not aware of any pain or fear. I kept thinking I am not going to die like this, not today.
I quickly realized that they were not going to be able to reach me and I needed to get my leg free from the rocks, it was wedged in. I pushed and pulled and finally pushed one last time very hard with my right leg and felt my left leg come free. Then I passed out from lack of oxygen.
The next thing I felt was calmness and a sensation of floating but no awareness of my body. I saw faces racing above me in rows. They were faces of almost everyone I knew in my life including the people on the trip. This seemed to go on forever until finally I could just see Kam and Tiffany's faces but nothing else, just black, then I started to see more but I could not hear. They were yelling it seemed like but I could not hear them or answer them.
All of a sudden it felt like I was there again. I could hear them and see them and I felt tremendous pain all at once. For a couple seconds I did not realize what had happened. It all came back quickly though. I remember my face hurting, not being able to move my left leg at all. I felt so scared and upset I could not understand what had happened, it was unreal. Tiffany kept talking to me and telling me to calm down, that I was fine. She was holding my head the entire time. She never left my side.
My parents would come and go talking to me every once in a while, I could tell they were upset. My oldest brother Jim was next to me as well, holding a towel on my face to stop the bleeding. He was so brave and he never cried because he knew if he did, I would cry too. Derek and Kim were also there helping to move me from one side of the river to the other and taking care of some of my wounds. Every once in a while I would feel as though my breathing was slowing and it might stop, I would start to panic but Tiffany would help me breathe by doing breathing exercises. I think that if she were not there to save me and breathe with me while we waited for the helicopter, I might not have made it. Tiffany was my guardian angel that day. She will always be in my heart.
It seemed as though we were there forever, for hours and hours. Finally the helicopter came and I remember Ian coming to tell us it was here. Kam, Ian, Tiffany, and Brenda gathered some of the people on the trip and I remember seeing each of them as I was passed up through the rocks to the helicopter. It was a relief to be in the helicopter, on an iv, and flying to a hospital. Even though I vomited the whole way there, for the first time I felt like I was going to be ok. Once at the hospital I only remember vague things. Getting a cat scan and a surgeon coming over to stitch me up. I was in and out of consciousness the whole time I was there, and I would wake up from convulsions every once in a while because my body was in such shock.
I flew to meet my family in Las Vegas and was in a wheel chair for a couple of days because I had done some damage to my leg. I flew home from Las Vegas and it took months for me to heal. I was on crutches for at least a month, and my face took a while to heal because I had broken my orbital bone. I still have all my scars but they are fading and they are nothing compared to what could have been.
Death is not scary or painful or anything. It is not something that can be explained. I remember exactly how I felt the whole time I was unconscious I guess and I will never forget that either. I am no longer afraid to die and I feel that I was saved and given the rest of my life for a reason, and until that has been fulfilled I will be here. It is always in the back of my mind and for some reason I will never be able to put it behind me. Maybe that is because I don't necessarily remember it in a bad way. It has changed my life in so many ways and it is not something that I will ever forget or get away from. I still have nightmares and I probably always will, but I also have an experience that very few people in the world have. I have been given a glimpse into death and what it feels like. I thank God every day for my life and for the experiences, even this one that shapes the person I am today.