Amid Slide’s Carnage, Heroism and Sacrifice

Cindy Bann refused to budge.

With boulders still crashing down the Hawaiian mountainside, rescuers had abandoned her husband amid the rubble, afraid they’d be crushed trying to save a man who was clearly beyond help.

It was Mother’s Day, Sunday afternoon.

She and her husband, Aaron, had just hiked two miles to see the spectacular 90-foot waterfall, a special thrill as their vacation wound down. It would be the Placentia couple’s final trip together.

Aaron Bann--her high school sweetheart and father of their 2-year-old daughter--had, just moments before, shielded her from a slab of the volcanic mountainside that tore loose and swept through one of Hawaii’s most picturesque tourist spots, the Sacred Falls.

“She wouldn’t leave him,” said Dr. Geoff Scott of Anaheim Hills, one of the first on the scene of the most deadly landslide ever in Hawaii. “I had to get some bystanders to force her out of the danger area.”

Aaron Bann and at least six others were killed Sunday when a landslide at Sacred Falls State Park in Hauula sent car-sized boulders thundering down on weekend sunbathers at the foot of the waterfall, tucked away in a tropical gorge, officials said. Many were Southern Californians on holiday.

Witnesses watched as Bann, 31, died while protecting his wife from the tumbling rocks.

“He was a hero,” his grandmother, Shirley Berko, said Tuesday.

Scott said Bann was left behind because he appeared beyond help, while dozens of others were injured and required immediate care. Some had stopped breathing or had no pulse and one had an extreme head injury.

Scott and his family were 50 yards from the falls when the landside hit. At first, he thought the roar was a flash flood. Only when he ran to the scene and saw the devastation did he realize what happened.

Wearing Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, the doctor raced to the bottom of the falls and found dozens of bloodied tourists.

“The worst horror movie you can imagine pales by comparison,” said Scott, a senior resident in head and neck surgery at UC Irvine Medical Center.

As rocks continued to tumble from the 600-foot slope, Scott organized healthy survivors to move the most severely injured from the fall zone. Rescue teams were still half an hour away. Scott, an emergency room veteran, was the only physician on the scene.

Rescue workers said Scott’s quick action probably saved lives, but the surgeon said that many others at the scene deserve just as much credit.

“It wasn’t me. It was everyone,” Scott told reporters Tuesday. “Together, we saved two or three people.”

Cindy Bann, 31, injured her leg in the landslide and is expected to be able to return home in two to three weeks. She and her husband were on a five-day vacation in Hawaii, visiting friends who had recently celebrated a wedding. Hawaii was one of their favorite destinations because they loved the outdoors, where they hiked, golfed and played tennis.

Bann had been working for a family property management company for several years.

“He was first and foremost, a family man,” said his mother, Bonnie Bann of Anaheim.

Along with Bann, the dead included Jennifer Johnson, 24, of West Hills; her brother, U.S. Navy radioman Mark Johnson, 30; Donna Forsch, 38, of Elk Grove, Calif.; Terri Zerebeski, 42, of Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada, and Air Force Master Sgt. Scott Huling, 36, who was stationed at Hickam Air Force Base near Honolulu.

Hawaiian authorities said Sarah Johnson, 24, of Hayward, Calif., was still missing and presumed dead.

Her boyfriend, hospitalized with a broken leg, reported her missing. It’s still unclear if she was related to the victims from West Hills.

Rescue workers searching for more victims used military dogs and a helicopter with thermal imaging devices, but detected no one under the rubble. Authorities abandoned the search Tuesday morning, fearing the unstable mountainside may tear loose again.

“It looked like one of those disaster scenes you see on TV . . . like a plane crash,” said Lance Fairly, a 38-year-old artist who lives near the park.

Immediately after the slide hit, the survivors began pulling others from the rubble.

Scott assumed command, moving from victim to victim, making split-second triage decisions. It became apparent to others that he knew what he was doing.

“He went beyond the call,” said Honolulu Fire Department spokesman Capt. Richard Soo. “He wasn’t wearing a white coat and tie, [but] he didn’t have to identify himself. He helped out people he didn’t even know.”

The first rescue workers arrived about 30 to 45 minutes later, bringing only back boards and splints, which proved useless for the most severely injured.

“I requested helicopters,” Scott said, knowing that some of the most severely injured needed immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation equipment to survive.

Jennifer Johnson had flown to see her brother graduate Monday from Chaminade University in Honolulu. Jennifer died shortly after being caught in the landslide, and her brother died at a Honolulu hospital Tuesday morning.

Their parents, Leonard and Sheila Johnson of West Hills, were also on the island to attend the graduation ceremony.

“The mother is . . . in terrible shock,” said Carol Steven, a spokeswoman for The Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu. “It’s really sad.”

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Times staff writers Karima Haynes and Annette Kondo in West Hills and correspondent Susan Essoyan in Honolulu contributed to this report.