HUNT, Texas ā Thad Heartfield received a call from his son at 4 a.m. on July 4 as water began rising in his vacation house near the Guadalupe River in Hunt.
Aidan Heartfield, Thadās son, was sharing the home with Beaumont natives and his friends, including Ella Cahill, Joyce Catherine Badon and Reese Manchaca.
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All four graduated from Kelly High School and are now in their 20s, studying at UTSA and Trinity University.
The four went missing during the Hill Country floods, and as of Thursday, Aidan remains the only person from the group still missing.
Cahill, Badon and Manchaca were found deceased, according to family and a news release on Wednesday.
Thad said that while on the phone with his son that night, water in the home rose from 4 inches to 4 feet within a matter of minutes.
āMy son saw their vehicles wash away, and he could not make it to the highway. The water was too fast and too high,ā Thad told CNN.
Thad said his son handed the phone to Badon to help the women stabilize themselves on the houseās porch as water rose.
āJoyce told me in those very moments that she thought Aidan had been hit by debris and was in the water,ā Thad said.
Seconds later, the phone shut off in what would be the last contact Aidanās father would have with the group that night.
āWhen I lost contact, I immediately got in the car and started the five-hour drive,ā Thad said.
With floodwaters on the highway, Thad was unable to enter Hunt until the waters receded in the evening.
According to The Washington Post, Thad led a search for his son with Texas EquuSearch, a nonprofit recovery team.
After three days of searching, Thad requested that the search continue without him. According to The Washington Post, he didnāt want the final memory of his son to be the discovery that he feared.
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