Page 3 of Everything She Feared

Still Jackson refused to quit.

Adam’s phone rang—it was the emergency operator. She’d gotten his number from Connie.

“Yes... A lot of blood... No pulse... We both have CPR and First Aid... He’s doing CPR... Unconscious... Not responding... Tell them to hurry.”

Staying on the line to provide directions to the scene, Adam held Anna’s still-warm hand while watching Jackson’s unrelenting CPR. Blinking back tears. His gaze went from Anna to the rock face, his stomach lifting at the magnitude of the drop, his focus traveling up beyond the broken branch to the cliff, seeing Connie looking down at him.

Adam shook his head slowly.

Connie’s hand flew to her mouth. She turned, nearly doubling over before somehow getting enough control to pull Katie closer, comforting her. Slowly they started back to be with the others at their day camp.

Connie’s mind swirled as they returned to the clearing; twenty-four kids, aged nine to fourteen, were in the Sunny Days excursion, along with four adult supervisors and three older teen assistants—now, only two.

Moments ago they were all starting a blissful outing, only to see it turn into a day of horrible heartbreak, a day they would remember for the rest of their lives, Connie thought. Everything at their day camp came to a halt when Connie and Katie emerged.

“Is Anna okay?” asked Dakota, one of the supervisors.

Connie searched the group, meeting anxious, expectant faces, feeling Katie’s sobs against her. Holding her tight, Connie brushed at her own tears.

“Anna fell,” Connie said. “She’s hurt bad, really bad.”

“Did Anna die?” one of the girls asked.

Connie stared at her.

“I want to see!” said Dylan Frick, a boy who was also in Katie’s class at school.

“No!” Connie said loudly, then softened her voice. “We don’t know anything yet. We just have to wait.”

Some of the kids got on their phones, texting and calling their families, while a few of the girls rushed to Katie and Connie, encircling them in a group hug, their sobbing soon mingling with the tragic operatic chorus of distant sirens echoing over the treetops.

King County Deputy Rob Hirano’s stomach tightened.

It happened to him at every fatality.

Dealing with shocked witnesses and devastated families and friends of the victims, he knew how things could get emotional and chaotic. Often people just lost it, which was understandable. But he had to maintain order, take control, keep his professional distance, concentrate on the job.

As the first responding officer, his work was critical.

Hirano stepped carefully down to the scene with two paramedics behind him carrying equipment bags and a Stokes basket.

With Jackson and Adam watching, the paramedics, their radios squawking as they kept in touch with dispatch, checked Anna for vital signs. All their attempts to resuscitate her failed. Determining Anna had no cardiac activity, they confirmed she was deceased.

“Alright,” Hirano said, then alerted the medical examiner to come to the scene just as the sky thudded. The Search and Rescue helicopter began circling the area. Hirano radioed for the crew to stand down for now. They might be needed later, once the ME was finished, to airlift the deceased from the scene.

After Hirano took photos of Anna from every angle, then the area, then the cliff face, he nodded for the paramedics to cover her with a sheet. While the medics notified their dispatcher and waited for the ME, Hirano took Jackson and Adam aside to interview them separately.

Adam Patel, aged twenty-one, held the back of his head in his hands. At times he stared at the sheet covering Anna, his eyes filling with tears, his voice tremoring as he told Hirano all he knew.

Hirano then went to Jackson Jones, aged twenty-three and the group’s leader. Continually rubbing his chin, blinking repeatedly, Jackson’s voice was steady as he gave Hirano information.

The dead girl was Anna Shaw. She was seventeen, from Seattle and was assisting the Sunny Days Youth Center group with its outing for the day. The SDYC was a nonprofit community organization. They’d left Seattle earlier that morning on a chartered school bus for a day trip here to Sparrow Song Park. The bus dropped them off in the parking lot. From there they hauled gear along the trail to their day camp.

“Anna’s one of our three teen chaperones. She was hoping to become a supervisor. Normally we have an adult bring up the rear of the group, but we felt it would be okay for Anna to do it today,” Jackson said. “So, she was the last to leave the bus, and she stopped—” he nodded to the cliff “—to take a selfie when she fell.”

“How do you know that’s what happened?” Hirano asked.

“Katie told us. She ran to us for help.”

---