ARDEN, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Two Fairview women, Jackie Fenstermacher, 74, and her older sister, Cynthia Dunn, 75, will be the focus of a community benefit this weekend, over a year and a half after they survived Tropical Storm Helene flooding by holding onto a mattress.
This weekend, the Sleep On It Mattress Outlet and Gallery will spotlight the sisters’ survival with “Hope Floats: A Benefit for the Mattress Sisters of Asheville.”
The benefit, which will be held from 2-6 p.m., Sunday, June 28 at Sleep On It, 2200 Hendersonville Road in Arden, N.C., is intended to raise money for the sisters to purchase a new home. Their previous residence was destroyed by Helene floodwaters.
“Hope Floats” will feature live music, food and drinks and a silent auction, as well as an opportunity to meet the sisters.
“These ladies survived floating in a river on a mattress for [miles], and they’re just wonderful ladies,” said Deb Vetere, owner of Sleep On It. “They’ve been through the mill and they were promised a home.”
Surviving a storm
The story of Fenstermacher and Dunn’s survival is harrowing.
The two lived in a house together, located along Flat Creek in Fairview, N.C. Around 7:30 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, Flat Creek rapidly narrowed the distance between it and the house.
With water crashing through their windows and debris slamming against the walls, Dunn, Fenstermacher and their Shih Tzu, Romeo, climbed onto a queen bed.
“All of a sudden, the water was coming through the utility room all the way to the roof, and I was screaming ‘We got to get out of the way!'” Dunn recalled. “[Fenstermacher] grabbed the little dog, and we all jumped on the bed.”
“It happened so fast. I didn’t know what to do except jump on the mattress,” Fenstermacher added.
That resourcefulness would define the next two days.
The rising water carried the trio out of the house and into the flood on the bed, where they gripped their mattress and held on. After riding the bed around two miles, the bed frame was split in twain.
“All of a sudden, bam, we hit a pile of debris, and when we hit the debris, the bed snapped in half. It slung-shot me out, and I hit a pile of trees that knocked me out,” Fenstermacher said. “When I came to, all I had on was a nightgown. Everything else was gone. My shoes were gone. Everything was gone.”
When she woke up, Fenstermacher saw a wasteland of downed trees, totaled cars, floating garbage and her personal belongings. Dunn and Romeo were nowhere in sight.
Dunn, meanwhile, was trapped in the deluge.
“I got knocked out on the side of the bed. I was in a vortex. I couldn’t get up my foot on anything. I was buoyant, and I kept trying to be buoyant to get my head above water,” Dunn said. “When we hit, like two feet of insulation from the ceiling fell. It was that popcorn stuff, and it got in my mouth and my eyes and ears. I couldn’t hardly see, and so I was bouncing, trying to let Jackie see where I was. I had my hand up and I said, ‘God, I hope she sees me.'”
She did. Fenstermacher made her way over the mounds of refuse and found her sister. The two reflected on Fenstermacher’s efforts to rescue Dunn with a great sense of humor, a trademark of the sisters’ personalities.
“I had my arm like this on the log, and I was trying to grab her and pull her up, and I just couldn’t. I couldn’t get her. I couldn’t get a grip,” Fenstermacher remembered. “She was like a slicky little eel!”
“Well, I just thought you’d throw something at me like a rope,” Dunn added.
“ Oh, I wanted to throw something. She’s like, ‘Well, get a rope!’ And I’m like, ‘Do I look like I have a rope?'” Fenstermacher exclaimed.
Fenstermacher watched the water around them, considering passing objects as tools to hoist her sister out of the swill. Finally, she found an ornamental bench, which served as leverage to deliver Dunn to safety. The process took the better part of an hour. When Dunn at last made it out of the water, her legs and torso were covered with scratches and bruises.
“It looked like somebody took a baseball bat and beat her from the back of her head, down to her legs,” Fenstermacher said.
Dunn was not the only one Fenstermacher rescued from the water. Somehow, Romeo had remained nestled in the mattress, which was trapped against nearby debris. Before Dunn was hoisted from the water, Romeo hopped from his perch to her shoulder, unscathed.
“That little dog has wings, because he did not have a scratch,” Fenstermacher said.
After all three survivors were out of the water, they took stock of their surroundings. The trio was trapped at the bottom of 40 feet of accumulated debris and lumber. Any attempts to climb out were quashed by the shifting stack. Meanwhile, 30 feet downriver, the river went careening down a waterfall. They were stuck.
However, the resourcefulness of the sisters would once again come in handy. Keeping a careful eye on the water, Fenstermacher plucked all sorts of things from the flood. A water bottle for hydration. A tarp to wrap Romeo in for warmth. Bins to beat on with sticks in hopes someone would hear. Plastic bags to tie around herself and her sister, keeping them warm and, crucially, keeping Dunn from infection after a recent hip surgery.
The two waited in the debris pile for two days and two nights. Despite the danger they faced, the sisters were able to rely on each other for comfort, humor and resolve.
“At one point, I was trying to make Cynthia laugh, and I’m like, ‘Daddy’d be so proud of us that we both survived this,’ and she goes, ‘Daddy’d be mad. You lost the house,'” Fenstermacher laughed. “I’m like, yeah, that’s true.”
On the morning of the second day, Fenstermacher got a funny feeling.
“Early that morning, the nicest, warmest feelings come over me. I’ve never had this feeling in my entire life. And all of a sudden, I heard this voice go, ‘Everything’s gonna be okay.’ And I turned to Cynthia, and I’m like, ‘I know you’re gonna think I’m crazy, but Jesus just said everything’s gonna be okay.’ And it probably wasn’t even an hour later, we heard somebody singing,” Fenstermacher remembered.
“It’s gospel,” Dunn smiled.
“Cynthia goes, ‘Are those angels, are those angels?’ I couldn’t hear anything at first, and then I’m like, oh, I can hear it,” Fenstermacher said. “My neighbor. It was her and her husband and their two grown sons, walking down there trying to see if anybody needed help.”
They were saved. A few hours later, the neighbors brought in a few men riding on all-terrain vehicles and carrying chainsaws. The rescuers worked through the logs and debris and carried the sisters out. They were taken to a church, then a shelter at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College.
The sisters’ journey was not over. They would move shelters several times in the months to come, receiving aid from some and malicious treatment from others. Nonetheless, they persisted.
Today, the sisters are looking to buy a house in Swannanoa. They survived Helene by floating, whether on mattress, good humor or divine intervention.
When the two were being flown to A-B Tech by helicopter, their pilot heard their story. His response sums up exactly what is so amazing about the Mattress Sisters.
“He’s like, ‘I want to tell you two ladies. Y’all were tougher than a woodpecker’s beak,'” Fenstermacher grinned.