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The six teens, from Olympia and Lacey, parked their cars at McKenna Park and cast off around 5:30 p.m. Saturday.

“We had gone to another park, but needed a permit to park,” Nicole Dillinger, 18, said. “An older couple told us they had been on the river at McKenna Park and that it was lovely.”

The teens cast off in two rafts. Four of them were in one raft and two in the other. The other five teens were Genemichael Lauria, 19; Arielle Pauling, 19; John Galus, 19; Thea Brock, 19; and Kenny Chrispin, 17.

The group was on the river for 15-20 minutes before things started getting rough and they saw all the rocks.

“The first raft crashed into a big rock that was probably about 2-by-3 feet,” Dillinger said. “The second raft also crashed into the rock and popped.”

“I was hanging onto the back of the raft.”

The six teens huddled on the rock, which was located a mile or so from their cast-off point near Whitewater Estates, a gated residential development near Roy.

“At first I was like ‘oh, crap, this can’t be good,’” Dillinger said. “I was scared.”

“Everyone was frustrated.”

None of the teens were wearing life vests and two of them didn’t know how to swim. However, one of the teens brought a cell phone and was able to call for help.

The first call came out to Southeast Thurston Fire and EMS at 6:42 p.m., but the crew was at a fatality car accident call.

Chief Rita Hutcheson said she forwarded the call to South Pierce Fire and Rescue.

But they, too, were on a call. Emergency crews from Central Pierce Fire and Rescue and their swift water rescue team were the first to arrive.

Eventually crews from Southeast Thurston, South Pierce, Puyallup Fire, the Pierce County Sheriff, Thurston County Sheriff and the Pierce County Metro Dive Response Team arrived to help.

Even with all the different agencies, it took several hours to rescue the teens.

“It takes so long to do rescues like that,” Hutcheson said. “Those kinds of rescues are labor and equipment intensive.”

“The condition of the river made it incredibly difficult with all the rocks and debris.”

Crews set up on each side of the river and used an anchor system to try and float a raft down to the teens.

However, it took a lot of maneuvering and several hours to get it right.

“The crew on the Thurston County side of the river had trouble finding anchoring points,” South Pierce Chief Bob Vellias said. “The Pierce County side had lots of trees to anchor to, but the other side had a lot of bushes and thistle.”

Because it is so early in the season and with the sudden heat wave, glaciers are melting and creating a heavier, icier flow in the river. “I remember at one point I took off my shoes and my feet were turning purple and white,” Dillinger said. “A couple of times I kinda passed out and fell off the rock. I was super, super cold.”

Finally, just after 11 p.m., the teens were rescued, treated and released.

“I was in the back of the aid unit for about an hour with heating packs,” Dillinger said.

“They had to treat my feet with saline solution because they were so frozen I couldn’t move them.”

“It took so long for the color to return to my feet and to be able to move them.”

Only one of the six was sent to the hospital, but only to see if an already existing cast needed to replaced.

While it will probably be awhile before Dillinger goes out on the water again, it probably won’t be the last time.

“If I do, it’ll definitely be with a crew who knows what they were doing,” Dillinger said. “And we need to have things like life vests and sunscreen.”

“Kids going out (on the river) definitely need to be prepared.”

By Megan Hansen
Nisqually Valley News