Close family friends say 17-year-old Malaya Hammond died heroically, in an effort to save her family.

MARBLE FALLS, Texas — Husband and wife Mikki Willis and Nadia Salamanca are close family friends of Liz and Matthew Hammond, who live in Marble Falls and had three children. Their oldest was 17-year-old Malaya Hammond.

“The parents are amazing, but Malaya also set the standard as the oldest. So she was an incredible role model for her siblings,” Willis said.

Early Saturday morning, Willis said the Hammond family was on their way to a Christian summer camp. Pitch dark and raining very hard, they could not see that Cow Creek Bridge had just been washed out.

“Their van went over the cliff into the raging water, and it was Malaya who was the one that was able to get a car door open,” Willis said.

Willis said everyone got out of the car and was heading to shore when Malaya got stuck in a current and was pulled away from her family.

Search efforts began immediately. For three days, the family worked with the community and volunteers to find her, even chartering a boat.

On Monday morning, they got coordinates that led them to Malaya Hammond’s body.

“The four of them went into the river to make peace with the water and to give thanks that they had found her and that they have closure,” Willis said.

When coming back to the dock, Salamanca remembers seeing a rainbow in the sky.

“She loved rainbows and later, they felt that that was her saying, you know, ‘I’m with God now, and I love you,'” Salamanca said.

As the death toll rises in the Texas floods and leaves many families needing answers, Willis and Salamanca believe an example can be taken from the way Malaya Hammond lived her life – and the way it ended.

“Humanity is faced with so many crises and dramas and fear and doom and gloom,” Willis said. “By coming back together as a people, particularly with our family members, I think that if the Hammond family knew that was happening to some degree in their daughter’s name, that would be the greatest gift that they could ask for.”

To help the Hammond family with funeral arrangements, replace their car and their many belongings, a GiveSendGo campaign has been created.