‘She saved my life’: Jewish lawyer describes wife’s last few moments before she was killed by Texas floods

“Mollie died in a manner consistent with how she lived — selflessly taking care of someone else before she took care of herself,” Randy wrote.

By Shiryn Ghermezian, The Algemeiner

A Jewish couple who struggled to escape the deadly floods in Central Texas over the Fourth of July weekend did not survive together and on Tuesday, the husband, a well-known criminal defense attorney in Houston, recounted in a Facebook post his last few moments with this wife before she was killed in the flooding.

Randy and Mollie Schaffer were at their 46th annual reunion with law school friends at the River Inn Resort & Conference Center, located on the edge of the Guadalupe River in Hunt, when the flood started.

When the couple went to sleep for the night on Thursday, the weather outside their hotel “was fine,” Randy wrote on Facebook. At 3 am on Friday morning, a hotel manager knocked on their door and told them they needed to evacuate immediately because the Guadalupe River was about to overflow.

“I looked out the window and saw the river raging like Niagara Falls,” Randy said. The manager told the couple to drive from the hotel parking lot to the top of the hill, which Schaffer said ended up being Mollie’s “death sentence.”

“He should have unlocked a two-story building at the base of the parking lot and told the guests to go to the second floor,” Randy explained. “Ultimately, every other guest was spared when, minutes later, he unlocked that building, and they went to the second floor. However, we had already left the property in Mollie’s SUV.”

The Schaffers were not able to get far in their car, so Mollie instead pulled over on the shoulder of the road. Soon enough, water starting rising up the door of their car. The car then started floating, hit a tree, and spun onto the road.

“Mollie lowered the front windows and said to dive out feet first. I tried, but my seat was low, the window was high, and I fell back onto the seat,” Randy recalled. “The last words she ever spoke were, ‘You have to push harder.’ I pushed as hard as I could and went out the window.”

Randy was forced underwater by the strong currents. He was then pushed into a pole, which he wrapped his arms around and climbed up until he was above water.

He held on to that pole for an hour, he said, climbing as the water rose and staying there until the water started to recede. He called out for his wife and tried to find her, but he couldn’t see her or her car. “She had been swept into the river,” Randy wrote.

Mollie’s body was recovered on Sunday, and Randy identified a photo of her wedding band on Monday night. She died on July 4 at the age of 76.

“Mollie died in a manner consistent with how she lived — selflessly taking care of someone else before she took care of herself,” Randy wrote.

“She wouldn’t leave the car until she was sure that I had done so. She saved my life. It wasn’t my day to die. I wish that it hadn’t been [hers].”

“I met Mollie in June of 1967, weeks after we graduated from high school,” Randy recalled, concluding: “We’ve been together ever since, separated only at the end by the raging waters of the Guadalupe River.”

Friends and family took to the comments section of Randy’s Facebook post to share their condolences and kind words about Mollie. She was described as a “brave woman,” “a beautiful force of nature,” and “so beautiful, both inside and out.”

She was also called “a beautiful, kind, caring and generous woman,” as well as “just the best: wife, daughter, mother, grandmother and friend to us all.”

Others from the family’s synagogue in Houston, Congregation Beth Israel, talked about their warm interactions with her. Mollie was raised Catholic but converted to Judaism.

She volunteered at Congregation Beth Israel before becoming the vice president of the board.

Mollie is survived by her husband, her two children — Randy III and Josh — and three grandchildren, Sabina, Jacob and Wyatt. She is one of at least 120 people who were killed by the flooding in Central Texas that began during the early hours of July 4.

After a private burial, there will be a memorial service for Mollie at 2 pm on Sunday at Congregation Beth Israel, her son Josh wrote in an obituary published about his mother on Wednesday.

He asked friends and family to donate to the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund or any charity in lieu of flowers or food for the family.

The River Inn Resort and Conference Center did not immediately respond to a voice message request for comment from hotel ownership.