The grieving father of an 18-year-old girl who fatally plunged from a dam in Big Bear revealed that his daughter had been hanging out with friends beneath a highway overpass when she slipped and fell to her death.
Big Bear resident Isabella Fanueler, 18, had been beneath the Highway 18 bridge next to the dam just after 11 p.m. on Tuesday when the tragic accident occurred.
Emergency responders rushed to the scene but were unable to save the teen, according to the Big Bear Sheriff’s Department.
“Her and a bunch of her friends were just going under there, like kids have been doing for a bunch of years,” Isabella’s distraught father, Danny Fanueler, told The California Post.
“They’ve never fenced the area off, and she fell. She slipped, then fell.”
Fanueler, who said his daughter had just graduated from Big Bear High School two weeks ago, explained that Isabella loved studying, playing sports and baking. She was also close to her 16-year-old brother, Alex.
“She was amazing. She started her own cooking business in school. Made like four grand,” the dad added. “She had to open her own bakery.”
Fanueler described his daughter as an excellent student who was “always on the honor roll.” She played varsity softball and golf, according to her high school web page.
Just two weeks before she died, Isabella posed with her brother at her high school graduation wearing a white robe and clutching two bouquets of roses.
The bridge where the tragedy occurred is a local landmark spanning two sides of a rocky embankment that abuts Big Bear Dam, a concrete structure more than eight stories high that’s located on Big Bear Lake.
According to investigators, Isabella was underneath the Highway 18 bridge with friends when she fell from the top of the bridge’s support structure.
Deputies and firefighters with the Big Bear Fire Department descended the hillside to reach her, finding her at the bottom of the embankment.
Shocking footage taken at the scene showed firefighters using a crane lift a stretcher out of the gulley where Isabella fell.
Authorities said a preliminary investigation found no indication of suspicious circumstances surrounding her death.
An investigation remains ongoing.