She was their little “Alley Rat.”
On Saturday, family members of 14-year-old Alyssa Calhoun were also calling her a hero.
The Newnan teen died Friday after an accident in which she and younger sister Kendall lost control of the swim noodle they were using while in the Chattahoochee River at the McIntosh Reserve Park in Whitesburg. Their father, Jason Calhoun, tried desperately to save his daughters.
“As far as the family is concerned, Alyssa was a hero,” her aunt, Carissa Calhoun of Newnan, who is married to Jason Calhoun’s brother, Andrew, said in a telephone interview Saturday. She said Alyssa and Kendall were “joined at the hip.”
Kendall is in intensive care at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston.
Jeanette Calhoun, Alyssa’s and Kendall’s grandmother, said the younger girl is improving and squeezed her dad’s hand when his cellphone - with a distinctive ring - went off. She said doctors are amazed at Kendall’s progress.
Jeanette Calhoun said her son, who owns a pressure-washing business, could swim, but not that well. Alyssa could swim “but the current was too strong,” Jeanette Calhoun said.
She said Alyssa “held her sister above her head to keep her as much out of the water as she could. She gave her life saving her baby sister.”
Alyssa, a ninth-grader, would have turned 15 in August. She was the oldest of five children.
“She was a very outgoing girl,” said Carissa Calhoun, through tears. “Me and her were really close. She was my baby.”
She said Alyssa loved being outdoors, talking to her friends, playing with the Xbox , going squirrel hunting with her dad and uncle, and fooling around with her cellphone. Like many teens, she loved to text, often sending messages and photos.
The family is devastated, Carissa Calhoun said, and the girls’ father “is a complete mess.”
They recently lost two close relatives - a young mother and her unborn baby. “We’re still getting over that,” she said. “Now to lose her, it’s really, really hard.”
Jeanette Calhoun said the family needs help with funeral expenses.
Capt. Jeff Richards of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department said like any river, the Chattahoochee can be tricky to navigate and is not always consistent.
At that spot, large rocks have created a little beach-like area, where many people go to camp and enjoy the outdoors.
When there is a storm, though, the wind can move around tree branches and other debris in the water. The current can also shift the ground around. So, that may be a shallow place at some times, but it could suddenly drop off in a place that wasn’t that deep before.
“You can be over your head just like that,” Richards said.
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