Casey Middleton was able to snap one image with her cellphone of rescuers rushing to the Big Four Caves near Granite Falls around 6 p.m. Monday.
"A sheriff's deputy and an EMT came running past us," the Bothell woman told KIRO 7.
Middleton and her boyfriend were about halfway up the mile-long trail that leads to the caves when they were ordered by first responders to go back to the trailhead and keep anyone else from hiking up toward the tragedy.
"They were unloading everything and getting all their gear together, and it was rushed," Middleton said. "They were not taking their time."
Middleton had no plans to go into the caves because her boyfriend had warned her about deaths there in recent years and because of warning signs posted nearby.
>> PHOTOS: Images from scene of collapse at ice caves
The danger was also obvious to Amlap Siul of Renton, who posted video of the ice caves on Facebook. Recorded before the collapse, he can be heard narrating in Spanish saying, "If the ice above the people seen inside the cave came down, it would kill someone." Not long after, it did.
Chloe Jakubowski posted on social media that she had been standing right next to the unidentified woman who died yesterday and feels lucky to be alive.
Casey Middleton believes everyone who was inside that cave when it collapsed is lucky.
"It's tragic that one person had to die, because there are all the signs and the warnings," she said. "People just need to pay attention to the signs."
However, just being near the caves can also be dangerous. Grace Tam, 11, was killed during a family trip to the caves in 2010. Her father, John Tam, declined to be interviewed on Tuesday but told KIRO 7 that Grace was at least 19 feet outside the cave when an ice block the size of a minivan struck and killed her.
"My daughter Grace was never inside the cave," Tam wrote in an email. "I still do not understand the United States Forest Service for not implementing any safety measure there," he wrote.
Tam also expressed concern for the woman killed on Monday: "I am extremely sorry & especially I am sorry to the family."