2 teen girls rescued from steep cliff over Carbon River

2 teen girls rescued from steep cliff over Carbon River

Two teen girls who were trapped high up a heavily-treed cliff over a rushing river for two hours have been rescued.

The girls, both 15, had been playing on a sand bar about 100 yards upriver with two other girls, according to Det. Ed Troyer with the Pierce County Sheriff's Office. But when they waded into the water, they were overcome by strong currents and carried about 75 feet down stream.

"We started swimming and we didn't realize the current was so strong and it started picking us up," said Kailey Whisnant. "We couldn't stop ourselves, and he kept hitting rocks, and rocks, and rocks on the bottom. That's when I grabbed (the other girl) and we rushed to the nearest place we could get which was over by the cliff and it looked like there was a trail over there."

The girls were able to get out of the water on the opposite side of the river bank and tried climbing up what they thought was a trail, but became stuck.

"We started climbing up and we got halfway and we noticed there was no trail and then the ground fell so we couldn't go back down," said Kiersten Jameyson. "We just parked at a place we could rest at and then we screamed for help."

A person on the other side of the river spotted them and called 911.

"At first we thought it was like shenanigans. Someone was like just screaming just to scream. But it was like a different tone," said Theresa Castro, who was walking on a nearby trail with a friend when she heard the girls' calls for help. "They sounded very like in danger."

As the daughter of 2 police officers, Castro said she tried to calm the girls' nerves and encouraged them to do breathing exercises until firefighters arrived.

"One of them was having a panic attack and saying that she couldn't breathe, so I was trying to help her breathe," Castro said. "We tried to stay as calm and composed as possible. But inside I was like freaking out. I just thank God that they're okay."

Video from Air 4 showed what appeared to be a girl in a swimsuit holding on to branches perched precariously roughly 100 feet up on the cliff side near the Orting treatment plant.

Troyer said 10 people were involved with the rescue with a backup team on standby and people staged below in case someone would have fallen into the river. The girls were being treated for some minor scrapes and bruises and then were to be released to their parents, Troyer said.

"It's a miracle," Whisnant said. "I thought I was going to die," Jameyson added

"It really was," Whisnant added. "We were looking death in the face."

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