Levine celebrated her 24th birthday July 25 in a Munich beer hall with her new buddies, a convivial band of about 50, most from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. By Tuesday, July 27, they were in the Swiss Alps, frolicking like schoolchildren in the snows of the Jungfrau. Later that afternoon, Levine and 44 other Contiki travelers opted to try "canyoning," an adrenaline-pumping sport incorporating bodysurfing, climbing and sliding down fast-moving mountain streams. As a light rain began to fall, four groups, each with two guides, were shuttled in turn by Adventure World, a local outfitter, to the Saxeten River near Interlaken. Levine, in the final group, would not see many of her friends alive again. Now back home, she tells PEOPLE about the freak flash flood that swept 21 to their deaths.
The water flowing down the mountain looked clear and blue. Then, all of a sudden, there was a muddy, dirty black wall of water. We had no warning—it was like lightning. Suddenly it was there, taking everything with it like a tidal wave. It just roared. My first reaction was I needed to hold on for a few seconds until it passed. Then I realized it wasn't stopping. For the next two hours, it never stopped. I pretty much panicked instantly.
I was standing in such a way that a huge rock in front of me was diverting the water around me. A few people ahead of me had gotten higher up the rock. One of them grabbed me and pulled me to the top. I didn't have time to worry about slipping.
I was just shaking. I kept thinking the water was going to come over the rock. We kept seeing the waves of water come at us, but right before they hit, the rock would burst them. I was crying. Everyone was trying to calm me down, telling me to relax. But I couldn't. I was scared to death.
After the panic, there was a moment of relief. We could see everyone in our group. We actually started singing. We had a group song, the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang song, which we had played every morning when we got on the bus, so we started singing that. I thought because we were OK, everyone else would be. I hate thinking that I was singing a happy song at the same time my friends were dying.
After about 45 minutes the water slowed down a little so that we were able to get off the rock and onto land. Nobody in our group was really hurt, just scratches. We started walking up the hill because the guides thought there was a bridge that would let us cross back to the side with the road that led out of the canyon. I was so weak. I was so scared. I couldn't walk anymore. Other people were helping me.
Eventually we heard voices. It was either climbers or people who were white-water rafting, who had been called by police. They found a spot where the rocks were pretty close, and about five guys helped us across, one at a time. There was a car waiting to take us back.
We were all shaken up. We saw only about 10 other people at the Adventure World base. We kept asking where everyone was. No one would tell us anything. After we had hot showers and ate, we went to the police station. We sat in a room for hours and just waited. Finally a team of therapists came in and said, "We have to be honest with you"—six hours after the fact!—"there's been a crisis. What news we can tell you"—and I'll never forget these words—"eighteen people is died." [The toll would rise later.]
I was sitting next to a girl my age, from New Zealand, whose husband had been missing. She started screaming and reached over to hug me. I called someone else to console her, because I couldn't. I just left the room. I couldn't handle it. I didn't want to have a picture of that room in my head, so I left. I went outside and stood alone for a while and thought about it all. When we were stuck on the rock I was freaking out, and everyone else was telling me it was fine. When we found out that people died, I was silent. Everyone else was hysterical.
There was nothing I wanted to do more than to call home. When I finally got my mom, it hit me just how lucky I was. I just kept saying, "I'm so lucky. I'm so lucky. We're so lucky." I didn't sleep all that night.
You don't ever believe that some-" thing like this is going to happen to you. Although I didn't know any of these people a month ago, we felt so close. We were all free-spirited, all just excited to see the world and do new things and have a great time. We took a group picture in Florence, and I was just looking at it thinking she's dead, he's alive, he's dead...it's terrible. A day after the accident, we had a service with an Anglican minister. He said that people deal with loss in their own time. I think I'll cry about it for a long time—on my own time and in my own way.
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