TYRO, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – UPDATE 5/26 6:55AM: The Nelson County Sheriff’s Office reports one dead and one injured as two hikers from Virginia Beach fell Saturday at Crabtree Falls. The sheriff’s office got the call Saturday afternoon that two hikers had fallen off the walking trail into the water. Upon arrival, deputies located a single female identified as Keturah Hendricks in the water, clinging to a rock to avoid being swept away. Rescuers navigated their way down a 75-foot embankment to her and used a 30-foot “dog-lead” to bring her out.

About an hour later, rescuers located the second person, Taniya Flowers of Virginia Beach, who had fallen an additional 150-feet to the lower set of falls. EMS was able to navigate her out of the water and to an ambulance in the parking area. Resuscitation efforts were unable to bring her to consciousness, and she was pronounced dead at UVA at 12:32AM. The Sheriff’s Office has no other information at this time.

ORIGINAL:

A busy holiday weekend for rescuers at a robust Crabtree Falls. Rescuers are stressing adhering to the safety signs as they responded twice Saturday, one of the incidents including the UVA Pegasus chopper. The Wintergreen Fire & Rescue summation is below:

“Twice yesterday our Technical Rescue Team (TRT) was dispatched to Crabtree Falls, located in southern Nelson County. On the first call, our crews hiked in from the top, however never encountered the patient. It is believed the patient hiked out through the lower entrance and was transported by a private vehicle. Our crews had barely reset when the second call came in. This time there were two people who had fallen from the upper falls. The call was received at 8:16PM.

Crews had to locate, repel to, stabilize, haul, lower, treat, etc. Some team members had to complete the entire evolution in wetsuits.

One patient was flown to UVA with critical injuries. Sadly, the second patient died at the landing zone. Our thoughts are certainly with the families who have experienced a terrible loss. Additionally, our thoughts are with all of the many first responders exposed to this incident and to any citizens who may have been using the trail during our operation.

The cause of the accident is being investigated by the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office.

Our last unit cleared the scene at 01:10

Units On-Scene Included:

Wintergreen Squad 1
Wintergreen Medic 176
NEMS Medic 93, Lt 93
Wintergreen Response 61
Wintergreen Chief 61
Wintergreen Chief 62
Wintergreen Captains 61, 62, 64, 65
Wintergreen Lieutenants 61, 62, 63
Wintergreen Admin 1
Piney River Vol FD Salvg 23
Piney River Vol FD Chief 20,Capt 22
Montebello Attack 71
Montebello Brush 73
Rockfish Valley FD
Nelson Sheriff’s Office
UVA Helicopter Pegasus
Helicopter AirCare-5

A hoist was requested to lighten our workload, however no hoist was available.”