‘It could have been us’: American father and daughter recall horror of Iceland cave collapse

By Taylor Galgano, CNN

(CNN) — American tourist Scott Stevens and his daughter Wylde, 10, believe they were moments away from being killed in Iceland’s cave collapse on Sunday.

Stevens, visiting from Austin, Texas, was taking photos of his daughter in the Breiðamerkurjökull ice cave and almost stayed a few extra minutes to take pictures with an additional lens.

“I was cognizant of the other group behind me, and I didn’t want to hold everyone up, because it’s kind of a single file line. So I thought it would kind of be rude for me to make everyone stand there where I’m switching lenses, so I opted not to do so, and then we just walked out,” he told CNN in an interview.

About a minute after they left the cave, there was a loud “boom” and they heard the cave “break.”

“It felt like if you were to actually grab that other lens, then you’d 100% be dead right now … We’d be dead. We were standing in that exact spot,” Wylde Stevens said. “I’m trying not to – I don’t want to think about it.”

One American man was killed, and an American woman was injured in the cave collapse. A group of 23 tourists from several countries were exploring the attraction, located in the southeast of the country, when the incident occurred, according to public broadcaster RUV.

“She was very concerned that I would, I would have died taking her picture … I guess it felt like it could have very easily been us,” Scott Stevens said about his daughter. “And you know, I was thinking of that poor guy. He’s just here on his holiday, and I’m sure he thought he’d be going home today or tomorrow or the next day. And you know, he’s not going home.”

The elder Stevens said there were two separate groups visiting the cave. He was in the first group and the deceased and injured were in the second, he said.

The groups traveled together, but each had about a dozen people with separate tour guides.

When Scott Stevens heard the loud boom, he was talking to his group’s tour guide.

“He kind of looked at me. I looked at him. We kind of had that like ‘That’s not good’ look,” he said.

Stevens and his guide ran down into the ravine to see what was happening and saw a woman in pain.

“I saw the woman with my own eyes. I know she was hurt,” he said.

The tour guides and a doctor who happened to be on the tour were assisting her, he added.

Stevens said his tour guide was distraught.

“He was in tears. … He came back. He had blood on him, I think from the deceased gentleman. And the other tour guide was equally destroyed. … traumatized beyond belief, both of them,” Stevens said.

Stevens said he later learned from the news that the American tourists were a couple. A US State Department spokesperson confirmed the death of one US citizen and the injury of another, saying they were “ready to provide consular assistance.”

Ice caves are a popular destination for visitors to Iceland, an island nation in the north Atlantic that sits on the southern edge of the Arctic Circle. Glaciers cover about 11% of the country.

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