photo by: Dylan Lysen/Lawrence Journal-World

Stephanie Reed, 21, stands at the entrance of the Baker Wetlands park, where she accidentally fell into the Wakarusa River and was swept downstream on May 22, 2021.

When Stephanie Reed hit her head on a tree branch and was pulled underwater after what felt like hours in the Wakarusa River, she was certain she was going to die.

The 21-year-old Lawrence resident fell in the river while visiting the Baker Wetlands in May and experienced a harrowing night — first fighting for her life in water that was flowing much more quickly than normal, and then trying to find her way back to safety once she’d gotten out.

“I’m grateful to be alive,” she told the Journal-World roughly a month after her ordeal. “I should have died. I wanted to give up multiple times, and I was physically exhausted.”

After Reed was reported missing at about 10:30 p.m. May 22, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office secured the perimeter of the park and started looking for her, Lt. Rich Qualls said. Qualls said the department used drones and thermal imaging to try to locate her.

The search went on all night, and Reed’s father said deputies eventually told him that the operation would likely be focusing on finding and recovering Reed’s body — that she was probably dead.

It wasn’t until sunrise that Reed was found alive, walking back to the entrance of the park where her ordeal began.

The river

Reed said she went to the wetlands near sundown on May 22 after she had finished her finals at Baker University. She said she was planning to meditate in the park before meeting up with her boyfriend later.

She said she also told her boyfriend he could come meet her out at the park if he wanted, but he was busy visiting parties for those who were graduating from Baker that week, she said.

When she reached the spot where the river meets the edge of the park, she said she noticed it was much higher than normal.

“It’s normally like a little creek,” she said. “I’ve never seen it (that) high.”

She said she began walking toward the spot where she normally meditates, but that she slipped and got some mud on her. To get the mud off, she said she tried to wash her hands and feet in the river. But while she was rinsing herself off, she said one of her legs “gave out” and she fell into the water.

“The current immediately took me,” she said. “I tried to turn around and swim against it, but it was not going to happen.”

The water was moving eastward much more quickly than normal. Part of that might have been because of recent rainfall, but the Wakarusa River is also affected by Clinton Lake, which releases water into the river.

According to data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the river reached a peak discharge speed of 2,600 cubic feet per second that week and was close to the 2,000 mark when Reed fell in. The peak was almost 10 times faster than the stream’s discharge speed a few days prior, which was between 200 and 300 cubic feet per second, said John Woynick, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service station in Topeka.

For comparison, during the second full week of June, when there wasn’t much rainfall in the area, the river’s discharge fluctuated between 25 and 35 cubic feet per second, according to the USGS data.

photo by: Dylan Lysen/Lawrence Journal-World

The Wakarusa River seen from East 1500 Road on Thursday, July 1, 2021.

At first, Reed felt that she was going to be fine and eventually get out of the water. But when the sunlight disappeared and she could no longer see well, she began to panic. She said she was also often running into tree branches and other debris, which would sometimes force her underwater.

At one point, she hit her head on a large tree branch, she said. She was then dragged underwater and could not get back to the surface.

That’s when she started to think that she was going to die.

“I thought, ‘I don’t want to die,’ so I was resisting it,” she said. “But I realized it was ending … My brain was just like ‘stop, you’re going to die.'”

So she gave up fighting the current and debris. She let her body go limp.

And she said that may have ended up saving her life.

It was only when she stopped struggling that she was able to return to the surface, she said. She was determined not to let the river kill her, and she kept following the current — which eventually carried her to the riverbank.

She could finally feel the ground, and she crawled out of the water. By her father’s estimate, she got out of the river near East 1750 Road, which is about 5 miles from the entrance of the park.

The search

Once Reed was free from the river, she said she was relieved — she had survived and would be able to go home.

But her harrowing night was not over.

She was miles away from the entrance of the park and unsure of where she was.

Reed said she walked around for a while until she found a road, but wasn’t sure where it led. Eventually, that took her to a place she recognized, East 1500 Road, which is the route she takes to get to Baker. She started following the road back toward the park entrance.

Originally, Reed said she thought she’d be able to find her way back easily, collect her phone and her belongings, get in her car and drive home. But without much light other than the moon, she said it was difficult to find her way back. She got lost a few times and began to feel desperate. She said she would stop and breathe deeply to collect herself.

At the same time, the Sheriff’s Office was looking for her.

Reed said she later learned that her boyfriend arrived at the park and found her belongings, but she was missing. He called police and her father, Bob Reed, who went to the park to help with the search.

Bob and his wife, Caitlin Reed, who is Stephanie Reed’s stepmother, stayed in the park all night hoping their daughter would be found. But he said that around 2:30 a.m., the deputies told him that the operation wasn’t a rescue, but a “search and recovery” — that is, that Stephanie was likely already dead.

“They told me they couldn’t do anything else,” Bob Reed said. “I had come to terms with the fact that she was dead.”

But once the sun started to come up, Stephanie Reed could see the Baker Wetlands Discovery Center, where she had parked her car. She could also see the lights on the deputies’ vehicles in the area, and she walked toward them.

Bob Reed said he had emotional whiplash when he was informed his daughter was still alive after he had already braced for the worst.

“That was the hardest night I’ve ever lived,” he said.

‘Very grateful’

About a month later, as she recounted the night she almost died, Stephanie Reed said she could now appreciate how lucky she was. She has since returned to the park and visited the area where she fell in.

And she also became emotional thinking about what her family went through when they were searching for her. She said she saw how important she is to them and how worried they were, and she doesn’t want them to ever feel that way again.

“I felt love from everyone around me,” she said. “I’m very grateful for that.”