A Texas hiker is reflecting on a scary moment that almost ended with them passing away. They were at the Grand Canyon amid a deadly flash flood. The hiker was just one of 100 stranded by the weather disaster.
They called it the "craziest day of their lives."
Whitnye Raquel spoke with SFGate about what happened. She said she and her friend were spending three nights at the Havasupai Reservation near the Grand Canyon. However, a storm caused the creek to flood with water flowing into the canyon.
"We just see boulders crumbling, and the sides of houses and school buildings just tumbling down the canyon walls," Raquel told the outlet. "I grabbed Paige, because I thought it was going to come right through their grocery store and end us. You don't think that you're going to see something like that in real life. It felt like a movie."
Tribal members allowed them to take shelter inside the village school's cafeteria. "That's when they said, 'The trail is now impossible,'" Raquel recalled. "'There are boulders blocking the trail. Nobody can hike in or out. You guys will all be helicopter-evacuated tomorrow morning. Nobody is hiking out of here.'"
Grand Canyon Hiker Dies
Ultimately, the flash flood almost killed Andrew Nickerson at the Grand Canyon. "I was seconds from death when a random stranger jumped from his river raft and risked his life without hesitation to rescue me from the raging waters," Nickerson wrote later on social media. Sadly, his wife Chenoa wasn't so lucky. She ended up passing away.
Chenoa's family decided to create a GoFundMe to celebrate her honor. They wanted to raise money for the Grand Canyon search and rescue crew.
"These brave men and women utilized every resource to find our sister by navigating dangerous terrain with extremely limited methods of communication while leaving no stone unturned," the fundraiser's caption said. "We are profoundly grateful for them and fully acknowledge that they defied the impossible to bring our family the gift of closure."
"The only thing that we want is Chenoa's memory to live on forever, and knowing her heart and what she would want, I think it's a perfect way to pay it forward to the men and women of the search and rescue and other first responders that helped locate her body," her brother, Janosh Wolters, told 12 News.
