A 29-year-old Hawaii mom of two drowned after she fell off a cliff into the ocean in front of her horrified boyfriend — who now blames first responders for not having the right equipment to save her from being swept out to sea.
Kalaiokealaula Ashley Nicole Reyes Kanekoa was watching the waves with her boyfriend, Dylan Gopp, 31, at about 2 a.m. Saturday on a cliff near Hawaiian Paradise Island Park when she fell.
Her boyfriend told the outlet she survived the plunge but when first responders arrived, they did not have the necessary equipment with them.
He managed to get a flotation device to her but then emergency officials had no equipment to pull her back to the shore..
“I had to get a raft to her. They didn’t have a flotation device. I got the raft out to her, and I said, ‘OK, let’s get a rope to her so she doesn’t drift away,’ and they said, ‘Oh, we don’t have any rope,’” Gopp told the outlet.
He said it was agonizing “to sit there and watch this girl suffer for 45 minutes to an hour suffer and scream for help and them to say boats were coming eventually.”
Hawaii County police told Hawaii News Now that they responded with firefighters within seven minutes of the 911 call.
The fire truck was not required to carry ocean rescue equipment, police said, adding that it was too dark and dangerous for them to go into the water.
“We requested services from the fire department for a rescue boat. We attempted to call a fire department helicopter. We also called the Coast Guard,” police Capt. Todd Pataray told the outlet.
“He attempted to rescue Kanekoa by throwing out a flotation device, however was unsuccessful as she was pulled out by the ocean’s currents,” police said on Facebook.
Gapp said he eventually ran to get fins to swim out himself, but that when he returned, the first responders had lost sight of his girlfriend.
The Hawaii Fire Department told Hawaii News Now it was too windy to fly its chopper and that the rescue boat arrived only at 4 a.m. after being sent from Hilo, about 15 miles up the coast.
Firefighters and the Coast Guard finally recovered Reyes’s body about 8 a.m. near Honolulu Landing in Pahoa, about four miles from where she fell into the water, police said.
She was transported to the Hilo Medical Center, where she was pronounced de*ad about 11 a.m., officials said
“Her sitting on that raft screaming help. ‘What do I do now? What do I do now?’ And me telling her, ‘They are going to get you’ and ‘they are going to get you.’ And they never came to get her,” Gopp said.
Kanekoa’s d*eath was ruled an accidental drowning.
No foul play is suspected, according to the outlet.
“She was a loving, caring person,” Gopp told HNN. “She loved her kids more than anything. She had a lot of fun. Lot of joy in life. She was always giggling, laughing.”
