[July 22, 2011] Witness describes watching 3 plunge off Vernal Fall Tweet Jul 20, 2011 (The Fresno Bee - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Jake Bibee was aghast when he saw members of a church group climb over a protective railing at the edge of Vernal Fall, along Yosemite National Park's popular Mist Trail. Then dismay turned to horror as one person slipped into the dangerous Merced River, and two others reaching to help also tumbled in. All three were swept over Vernal Fall, plunging more than 300 feet to their deaths Tuesday. "It was no more than five or six seconds of them bobbing in the water screaming before they went over," Bibee recounted Wednesday. "We had to watch the fear on their faces as they knew they were plunging to their death. It was awful." Bibee, who grew up in Angels Camp and has hiked to Vernal Fall several times before, was there Tuesday afternoon with a friend. Bibee, 28, said that when he saw people in the river, his first instinct was to rush to help, but he realized, like others around him, there was nothing he could do. "I turned my head away," he said. "I wasn't going to watch the third person go over after watching two." The three have been identified as Hormiz David, 22, of Modesto, Ramina Badal, 21, of Manteca and Ninos Yacoub, 27, of Turlock. The bodies have not been found, park officials said. Before Tuesday's accident, at least 14 people had died by accidentally plunging over Vernal Fall, more than any other waterfall in Yosemite. The three deaths Tuesday are the most at any one time. The three were part of a church group out of Ceres. They had walked the steep 1.5-mile trail from the Yosemite Valley floor to the top of the fall and moved beyond the protective guard rail to within 25 feet of the waterfall's edge. There were many witnesses, said park spokesman Scott Gediman, who said often more than 100 people at a time gather at the top of the waterfall on summer days. "Other visitors were pleading with them to come out of the water," Gediman said. According to Bibee, several in the church party had gone around the guardrail and were dismissive of requests to stay back from the river. A man in his 40s or 50s who appeared to be in the group, Bibee said, was holding a young girl over the top of the fall. "Enough of us said, 'Hey man, get out of there. That's not safe,' " Bibee said. But then Bibee noticed that the three who eventually fell in had also crossed over, and were "taking pictures and being stupid." Father Genard Lazar of the Church of the East, St. George Parish, and 12 members of the church youth group were eating lunch and taking pictures when the accident happened. Lazar was nearby, but did not see the three go in. "All I heard was screaming and I turned around and looked up and [David and Badal] were being taken by the water over the waterfall," he said. "We were all crying and praying and someone called 911." Wednesday evening, the pain was still evident as family members and friends packed the church in Ceres for a vigil. Many of those arriving were crying; others had expressions of shock. Many held out hope for a miracle. "She was a nursing student," Tanya Badal said of her sister, Ramina, 21. Then she corrected herself. "She is a nursing student." Badal was a nursing student at the University of San Francisco, and Yacoub was a chemistry student at California State University, Stanislaus, said Father Nenos Michael, who works primarily out of San Francisco. David was studying music at Modesto Junior College. Lazar said the group got to Yosemite about 10:30 a.m., and took about 90 minutes to get to the top of the waterfall. The remaining nine in the group, one as young as 9, all went home. Lazar stayed, and was joined Wednesday at Yosemite by family, friends and other church members. But when they realized nothing else could be done, they returned home. Rangers on Tuesday closed Mist Trail to Vernal Fall after the accident, but they reopened it Wednesday as search efforts moved downstream. The search will continue for several more days. On Wednesday afternoon, hundreds of tourists climbed the Mist Trail. Julie Ehrler of Modesto was on the trail with her mother-in-law but felt too uneasy to go all the way to the top of the fall. She called the loss of the three victims tragic: "It makes you stop and think and not do silly things. I can understand they wanted to get close to it because it's a beautiful site. But you have to be respectful toward nature." Signs in the park warn of the danger of swift waters. Including Tuesday's accident, six visitors have drowned in Yosemite this year. Two hikers drowned in Hetch Hetchy Reservoir on June 29, and a hiker slipped into the Merced River along the Mist Trail and drowned on May 13. One reason for the water-related deaths is the record snowfall during the past winter. The snowmelt has filled rivers with swift, freezing flows. The danger of Yosemite's falls is clear. Galen Clark, guardian of Yosemite for 21 years, put up protective railings at both Vernal Fall and Nevada Fall in 1892. At Vernal, rangers have added warning signs in several languages and with pictures to urge visitors to stay away from the river and Emerald Pool, which forms upstream of Vernal Fall. The last known death there was in 2005: A 24-year-old Sunnyvale man was swept over Vernal Fall after losing his balance near the river. Witnesses said he climbed over the guard rail to wash his face and cool off in the river. His body was not found. In June 2000, a 34-year-old Japanese female hiker accidentally fell into the Merced River and plunged more than 300 feet to her death. Her body was found hours later. Her name was withheld by request of the family. The search for the three who died Tuesday is hampered by high river flow. Each afternoon and evening, the river swells with a rush of water that puts searchers at risk, said ranger and incident commander Jeff Webb. "The river is just raging with white water," he said. The flow makes it impossible to use a search boat. Search dogs can't pick up a scent with all the water flowing through the area, Webb said. And a helicopter would be useless because nothing is visible through the churning water. Bodies found after melt Often bodies are recovered after the snowmelt dwindles and rivers subside. Two years ago, a 31-year-old woman drowned in the Merced after falling from the footbridge below Vernal Fall. Her body was recovered several weeks later as the river flow dropped. Webb said 20 to 30 searchers are combing the sides of the river. The search will be cut back in the next several days if the bodies are not found. But efforts will be renewed as the flow slows in the coming weeks. Park spokeswoman Kari Cobb said the three people who went over the fall had been seen earlier swimming about 25 feet upstream. Bibee, the witness from Angels Camp, said, "I told my friend, 'People come up here from the city or an area that doesn't have mountains, and they don't treat this place with the same respect.' " Staff writer Marek Warszawski, The Modesto Bee, the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press contributed to this report. To see more of The Fresno Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.fresnobee.com Copyright (c) 2011, The Fresno Bee, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. 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