VALLEY FALLS, W.Va. — West Virginia’s natural beauty is well known, but that natural beauty can sometimes come at deadly cost. That’s the takeaway of Valley Falls State Park Superintendent Brett Harshbarger after a young girl nearly drowned in his park last Sunday, August 6.
“These falls are very beautiful, but it’s also very dangerous,” he said.
It was late in the afternoon on a rainy, overcast Sunday when Harshbarger started hearing shouting from the park — close to where he was patrolling.
“A visitor came running up to me,” Harshbarger said. “He said he heard some screaming. He thinks someone had slipped into the river. So, I ran down to the area. I saw a couple of people in the area, and I think I saw the girl down below.”
At that point, he said, only one thing was on his mind.
“Get to her as fast as we can and try to help in any way we can,” Harshbarger said.
The girl appeared to have slipped on the rocks on the banks of the Tygart Valley River while attending the park as part of a field trip. It was just eight days after flooding had rocked Marion County — and it had been a wet, rainy day to boot.
“The rocks were already slick,” Harshbarger said. “But adding a little bit of water to it made it 100 times worse.”
“It’s a white water rapid type area that’s very rocky and very, very, very treacherous. And the water was a little higher than normal at the time because of all the flooding locally.”
Harshbarger, a 2011 graduate of West Virginia University, a prior graduate of Potomac State College, and a five-year veteran of the State Parks system, had never faced a real-time scenario like this in his career. He made a snap judgment though: the river’s would-be victim had secured herself to a rock, but she was too far away for him to go for a full water rescue.
“She somehow got a hold of that rock, and if she wouldn’t have she could have went a lot further down,” he said. “But somehow she got a hold of it and was able to keep herself on there and kind of pull herself up out of the water.”
And, fortuitously, she was conscious. Harshbarger had a throw-bag with up to 75 feet of rope in his truck. A few good Samaritans remained with the girl while Harshbarger retrieved the throw-bag and told the only other staff member to call 911.
“I had myself and two of the bystanders hold on one end of the rope,” he said. “I threw her the bag. She caught it, and we drug her probably ten or fifteen feet back through the river to the bank we were on and got her out of the water.”
“She was only in the water five minutes, but that water was still cold. It was kind of an overcast day so it wasn’t very warm. So she was starting to get pretty cold.”
But getting her out of the water was only half the battle, Harshbarger said.
“Then she kind of started going in and out of consciousness at the time too. She got beat up pretty good going down through those rapids.”
She had complained about injuries to her head and her side, which led EMS to think she could have a spinal injury. She needed to be moved, but moving her would present a challenge.
“We loaded her onto a backboard and put her onto kind of a sled and had six or eight of us carry her out up over trees and rocks,” he said. “It was a rough area where she got down into.”
Slowly but surely, the group was able to navigate their way out of the thick of trees, mud, and rocks and finally load the girl into an ambulance.
“I really have to thank all of our first responders, EMS, local police that came out to help,” Harshbarger said. “We’re out of the way a good ways, and we made the call and they were here in about 20 minutes. And as soon as they got on scene, they got right to work helping me get the girl secured and even calling in a helicopter. They were a huge help, and they really, really made the situation a lot better once they got out here.”
HealthNet flew the victim by helicopter to Ruby Memorial Hospital on August 6. It’s unclear how serious her injuries were or what her current condition is, but Harshbarger said he was relieved that they were able to get her out of the water. There hasn’t been a drowning at Valley Falls State Park since 2008.
But, he said, it’s still a sobering reminder for others at the park.
“A lot of things can happen. It’s water. It’s unpredictable.”