Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Mom: ‘I could feel his fingers slipping’
Search ongoing for missing boy swept away in Calif. flood
LOS ANGELES — Lindsy Doan didn’t think the water flowing over the creek crossing on San Marcos Road was deeper than normal when she tried navigating it in her SUV while driving her 5-year-old son to school.
But the creek, swollen with rain from California’s epic winter storms, was much higher and flowing stronger than she anticipated. Doan cursed as she lost control of the steering, and the 4,300-pound Chevy Traverse was carried off the road and pinned against a large sycamore tree.
“Mom, it’s OK,” her son, Kyle, reassured her from the back seat. “Just be calm.”
They were the last words the little boy said to his mother before his fingers slipped away from hers and he was swept away Monday on California’s central coast near Paso Robles.
“We’re worried because I don’t know if they’re going to be able to find him,” Doan told The Associated Press.
‘He wanted to make everyone smile’
Close to 200 people — including about 120 National Guard troops, search and rescue crews from six counties, dive teams, searchers using dogs and drones — looked for Kyle on Thursday in the receding waters and massive piles of debris along San Marcos Creek, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff ’s Department said. So far, they’ve found only one of his blue and gray Nike shoes.
The storms that have relentlessly pounded California since the end of last year have claimed at least 18 lives. Most deaths have been caused by falling trees and people driving on flooded roads.
Kyle was listed as missing. With a sister in high school and brother in college, he is the baby in his family and loved being the center of attention.
“He definitely capitalized on it,” his mother said. “He loves making everyone laugh. He wanted to make everyone smile. He loves to please people.”
As vacation came to an end, Kyle was excited to return to kindergarten Monday at Lillian Larsen Elementary School, his mother said. It was the first day he was going to be allowed to play without restrictions after recovering from a broken leg that required three surgeries and he was looking forward to seeing his friends.
‘My car started to drift’
The Doan family drove the same route the day before to a truck stop on Highway 101, splashing through the waters without incident.
When Doan approached Monday in light rain, there were no road closures and she didn’t think it looked any different from the day before.
“But as soon as I hit the bottom, my car started to drift and I realized that it wasn’t the same,” she said. “It was completely different.”
Scotty Jalbert, emergency services manager for San Luis Obispo County, said as little as 6 inches of water is enough to knock a person off their feet and can even push a car off course if it’s moving rapidly.
“With this tragedy, when the responders got to the scene, the water was over the vehicle,” Jalbert said. “Obviously, that kind of energy is going to cause a bad situation.”
‘Time was running out’
After Doan’s car came to a rest against the trees it began taking on water, so she decided to abandon it. The windows wouldn’t go down, but she was able to open her door and hug a tree. With the current pinning the rear door closed, she told Kyle to leave his belongings and climb into the front seat.
She was able to grab his hand but her grip was tenuous and the current swept Kyle around the other side of the tree.
“I could feel his fingers slipping from mine,” she said.
As the water pulled them apart, she let go of the tree to try to get her son, who couldn’t swim.
“I saw his head kind of floating and he was looking at me because he was going backwards,” she said. “I was trying to keep my head above the water, but the currents kept pulling me down. And after a while I didn’t see Kyle or what was going on.”
Neil Collins missed seeing Doan drive into the creek. But her screams caught his attention.
“I looked at my wife and said, ‘That sounds like a human,’” he said. “I heard a second scream and just ran up the river.”
He ran alongside her downstream while his wife Danielle, called 911 and some orchard workers brought a rope. Eventually, Doan managed to grab some branches of bushes underwater and Collins and his crew tossed her a lifeline.
Doan was hysterical when she made it to shore, Collins said.
If Doan had floated another 100 yards, he’s not sure he could have helped her. An embankment and barbed wire fence would have prevented him from running alongside her.
“Time was running out,” Collins said.
Brian Doan, Kyle’s dad, is grateful his wife was saved. He doesn’t fault her for driving that route and thinks she did the right things to try to save their son.
Despite those reassurances, Lindsy Doan can’t stop second-guessing herself.
“In the back of your mind, it’s like, ‘Well, what if, what if, what if I just turned around and went back the other way?’” she said. “What if, what if I had just decided, ‘Hey, you know, let’s not go down this road this day?’ I don’t know that that’s ever going to disappear.”
Asked what her son might say to her in this time, Doan collected her thoughts before saying that Kyle always wanted his family to be happy and feel good.
“Maybe he would say something like … ‘There’s nothing that you can do, Mom, it’s OK. Everything will be OK.’”