Zachary Turbyfill, 19, was home for Thanksgiving break from his freshman year at James Madison University. He had enjoyed the holiday with his parents and three brothers at their home in the Broadlands. And then he’d picked up a quick weekend job at the Snickers Gap Tree Farm near Round Hill in western Loudoun County.
All day long, he and his co-workers had gathered recently felled trees, loaded them onto carts for customers, driven them to another spot and unloaded them. Over and over since the crack of dawn.
Now, the sun was setting. Snickers Gap was about to close after a busy “Black Friday” with long lines of cars filling the parking lot all day. Suddenly, all hell broke loose.
“We were helping some guy load up this ginormous 11-plus-foot tree onto his car,” Zach recalled. “Then someone came sprinting down from the top of the mountain, and they were screaming that there was a kid trapped under a rock. We all looked at each other and were like, ‘What?’ And then everyone just started sprinting.”
The story that unfolded that evening on a nearby mountainside is one of horror and heroism. Click here and head over to the Ashburn Magazine website to read never before reported details and the full story of The Miracle at Snickers Gap.