Mom’s love survives Lake Mead tragedy

Friday, June 11, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

The last time Chelsea Petersen saw her mother it was as the 15-year-old she turned to swim more than 100 yards for the Lake Mead shore on Wednesday at her mother's urging.

Chelsea, her mother, 36-year-old Terri Ann Selden, and their 6-month-old cocker spaniel, Paige, had spent part of Wednesday on an air mattress on the lake but strong winds sent them into deep water.

The two slipped off the mattress and tried to paddle back to shore, leaving the puppy on top to try to weigh the mattress down. But a gust flipped the mattress, throwing the puppy into the water, and sent the air mattress skipping across the lake.

Selden, 36, "was very brave and urged Chelsea to swim for shore," said Chris Petersen, Chelsea's father and Selden's longtime partner.

Selden loved animals, family members said, and she apparently stayed in the area to look for Paige. Her family said she was not a strong swimmer.

"Chelsea started to swim toward the shore and she looked back," Petersen said. "The water was so choppy she couldn't see her mom."

Selden, of Las Vegas, is presumed to have drowned. Crews searched the lake Wednesday and Thursday and have not found her. The air mattress was found on Black Island, about two miles northeast of where the women were.

Chelsea, a competitive swimmer, made it through the choppy water and strong winds to the shore in about 45 minutes.

National Park Service rangers plucked the puppy out of the water north of Saddle Island after a half hour, park investigator Mike Blandford said. They then discovered Chelsea safe on shore. She was unharmed.

Mother and daughter had gone to Saddle Cove for a day of relaxation.

"It started as a day in the sun, a playful day, and then it turned into this," Petersen, 43, said. "I rented a boat and was out for four hours today, hoping I'd find her."

Chelsea, Selden and the puppy boarded the mattress on shore, but gusty winds sent the craft far out onto the lake in less than 10 minutes, National Park Service rangers estimated.

Petersen, upset that such an avoidable accident occurred, said people must wear life jackets when boating and rafting at Lake Mead.

"This could have been prevented if they only had been wearing life jackets," he said.

Mother and daughter had booked a rafting tour of the Grand Canyon next month, Petersen said.

"At least they would have been wearing life jackets" on that trip, he said.

Chelsea is an accomplished swimmer, Petersen said. She swims on the Team Rebels Junior Swim Team at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and will attend Coronado High School this fall.

"We were in the Bahamas this spring and Chelsea swam in choppy water there; she was an excellent swimmer," her father said.

Mother and daughter arrived in Las Vegas about five years ago. Selden worked as a cocktail waitress at the Imperial Palace, and she had been in Great Falls, Mont., before arriving in Southern Nevada.

"They were my best friends. They were inseparable," Petersen said. "More like sisters. They would laugh and talk and stay up all night."

Mother and daughter had also planned to adopt a miniature pig as another pet, he said.

Before the pair launched the float, Pete Khang, who was at the lake fishing with his family, tried to warn them to take precautions. With winds whipping above 25 mph, Khang said he asked if they had life jackets or any other kind of floatation devices.

Then, moments later, Khang said he noticed that the raft was blowing empty across the lake and he called the National Park Service at 2:22 p.m.

The first ranger arrived at the site at 2:25 p.m. and a second ranger responded by 2:32 p.m., park service spokeswoman Roxanne Dey said, reading from dispatch logs.

Two divers spent the next four hours Wednesday plunging 110 feet into the lake, but did not find Selden, Dey said. Park rangers cruised the shore and a 5-square-mile area where the woman might have gone down.

No further dives are scheduled, Dey said. However, rangers will scan the shore and the lake that attracts 8 million to 10 million visitors a year for the next three to five weeks, Dey said.

The search had resumed Thursday morning as rangers in boats looked along a portion of the lake's shoreline.

A team of six Navy divers from China Lake in Ridgecrest, Calif., who happened to be training at the lake this week, also volunteered to search for Selden.

"This is not something that anyone likes to do," said Navy Lt. Kevin Childre about his detachment's unexpected task. Though grim, Childre said none of his divers would have refused the opportunity to help.

The Navy diving team, which specializes in disposing of explosives, was equipped with scuba gear that allowed the group to search the lake to depths as great as 120 feet, Childre said. Visibility at the floor of the lake was good, he said.

The winds had shifted direction by Thursday, Talmadge Magno, a park service ranger who responded to the accident, said. On Wednesday gusts blew from the east, but they were blowing west on Thursday, making it difficult to determine exactly where the woman's body might be.