Lake Stevens man recalls daughter's last moments after ice-caves accident

The father of an 11-year-old girl who was killed when she was struck by a piece of ice at the Big Four Ice Caves says he doesn't blame anyone for what happened to the daughter he described as the "pride and joy" of his life.

But John Tam hopes that by talking about the last hours of Grace Tam's life, he can prevent another family from going through a similar tragedy.

"I just don't want this to happen to other people," Tam, of Lake Stevens, said through tears Tuesday morning. He described what happened in an e-mail to The Times and an interview.

Tam and his wife, along with Grace and her 9-year-old brother, William, and two Japanese foreign-exchange students living with the family, had started up the popular trail at about 11:40 a.m. Saturday, he said. They reached the top of the trail around 12:30 p.m. and settled down for a lunch of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, rice and meat.

By 1:40 p.m., the group arrived at the caves, which are formed by snow melt that runs down the mountain, forming channels through the glacier and the accumulated snow and ice. The group was standing on an ice field around 2 p.m. when a chunk of ice about the size of a Volkswagen bus fell from Big Four Mountain and struck Grace.

"We were not inside the caves," Tam said. "We were standing about 15 to 17 feet in front of the cave. I was farther forward trying to take a picture for them. The ice came down on the ground then rolled forward, bounced over Grace and landed in front of her."

There was no cellphone or radio reception in the remote area, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office. Fellow hikers ran down the trail to summon help.

In the meantime, other hikers had come to the family's assistance and carried Grace from the ice field and laid her out on a flat surface. She was kept warm with donated jackets and other clothing.

At first, Tam said in an e-mail, it looked as though she had only suffered a broken leg. When asked how she felt, Grace told her family she was not in pain, but could not feel her legs.

Her family tried to keep her awake and conscious by asking her a series of questions: her favorite food, favorite teacher, her best friend, her favorite singer. She later complained of being dehydrated and having difficulty breathing.

About one hour after the accident, one of the fellow hikers — a nurse — said she could no longer find Grace's pulse.

She and two other hikers, who were also nurses, began performing CPR, Tam said.

At some point, members of the party tried without success to insert a tube from a water bottle down the girl's throat to allow air into her lungs.

According to Tam, the first outside aide to arrive was a park ranger with a radio that did not have a signal from the mountain.

According to the sheriff's office, the first help arrived about 30 minutes after the 911 call was received at 2:30 p.m.

Next, an emergency medical team arrived from Snohomish County Fire District 23, but it did not have equipment to suction the fluid building up in the girl's lungs, Tam said.

Another team of emergency personnel arrived from Snohomish County Fire District 17 in Granite Falls around 4:15, he said.

Tam said the District 17 emergency personnel tried to shock life back into his daughter with a defibrillator, but that the battery failed and the operator "did not know how to change the battery." When they finally did change the battery, it was not charged, he said.

But Jim Haverfield, the chief of Fire District 17, said it was the suction unit, not the defibrillator, that had a dead battery.

The battery didn't die until after the girl had been suctioned twice, he said. After that, the emergency responders performed suction on the girl manually, he said.

The Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office ruled on Monday that Grace had died of a crushing pelvic injury.

Despite his initial concerns with the response time, Tam said that given his daughter's injuries, he doesn't "know if it would have helped if they had gotten to her quicker."

Tam, a retired contract engineer and a devout Christian, said he hopes the U.S Forest Service will consider ways to make the trail safer. The Forest Service has said it will review signage and consider ways to raise awareness of the dangers on the trail as well as the ice caves.

Tam said a public celebration of Grace's life will be from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 7215 51st Ave. N.E. in Marysville.

"She is our pride and joy, a most thoughtful child ... , " he said of his daughter. "But we don't want to have a memorial service. We want to celebrate her joyful moments and the happy life she had."

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com