ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Cheyenne Taylor turned 24 years old, and on Sunday, the only gift she wanted was for her sister’s body to be found.
“We need that closure so bad,” she said in an interview from her home in Tennessee.
Hawaiian authorities suspended the multi-day search for 32-year-old Lauren Cameron of Anchorage over the weekend, three days after she went missing in the waters off the north shore of Kaua’i.
Cameron was vacationing on the island of Kaua’i with her boyfriend, Anchorage resident Torin Blaker. The pair were hiking the Na Pali coast on Wednesday, Dec. 11, and had stopped at Hanakāpī‘ai Beach.
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According to a release from the Kaua’i Fire Department, rescuers responded to the area shortly after 3 p.m. on reports that Cameron had entered the water and was swept into the ocean by strong currents.
Taylor said authorities in Kaua’i — including the fire department and the Coast Guard — have been very communicative about the search, making sure friends and family members had the latest information.
She also heard from a man who said he and his wife were hiking in the area when they saw Cameron that day. Taylor said her sister was a good swimmer but knew better than to swim in dangerous waters and was only rinsing off after the hike. The man told her Cameron was in water no deeper than her ankles when he saw her.
“He said that she was just washing off, and he said he and his wife went on to walk a little bit more and they started hearing screaming for help because that’s when the wave came in and took Lauren,” Taylor said.
Taylor is also grateful for another man she hasn’t spoken to who swam out in the choppy water to try and save Cameron by delivering some sort of floatation device.
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What happened next is unclear, but Taylor said her sister wasn’t able to hang on.
“I just want to thank him, I do, he risked his own life for my sister’s life and it means a lot to us,” she said.
Taylor described her sister as adventurous, loving, and kind to all, a sentiment echoed by her long-time boyfriend, Torin Blaker.
Blaker wrote that he is devastated by the loss, and said in a tribute written to Cameron that “she loved life.”
“She loved its challenges, for a challenge equals a solution to which she could find,” the statement read. “She loved adventure, for around every bend was something new. She loved love, for it is the binding that makes us human.“
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Lauren Cameron with boyfriend Torin Blaker(Torin Blaker)
Blaker thanked first responders in Hawaii as well as the support from the Alaska Division of Forestry where he works and the Anchorage Health Department where Cameron was employed.
Blaker’s full tribute to Lauren:
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