Survivors of deadly Grand Canyon flash flood say they ran for their lives

Survivors of a deadly flash flood that swept through the floor of the Grand Canyon over the weekend described a horrific escape as they ran through rising muddy water in a desperate effort to reach higher ground.

Gabriel Bergemann and David Gregory told ABC News that they were backpacking together at the bottom of the national park on Saturday afternoon when disaster struck, and park rangers told them to run across a footbridge over a raging creek to higher ground.

Bergemann said that 10 minutes after crossing the bridge, a wall of water came through and washed it away.

"If they hadn't told us to evacuate when they did, I think a lot of people wouldn't have made it," he told ABC News.

Gregory added that the water level in the creek they crossed seemed to be "getting bigger and bigger as more water was coming into the creek."

"I was just thinking that if someone fell into the creek, I don't know how they would be able to get out," he said.

Grand Canyon National Park Service officials said on Monday that a second body had been recovered from the flooded area. A search continued for 14 people who remain missing or unaccounted for.

One of the individuals missing on Monday was identified in a Facebook post by his wife as Dr. John Guisti, a New York chiropractor, who was with a hiking group when the flash flood swept through the area where they were camping.

Guisti is a partner at Whipple City Family Chiropractic in New York, which posted his wife's message on Facebook, describing Guisti as a "deeply loved husband, father and pillar of our family."

More than 60 people, most of them hikers and campers, were air evacuated from Grand Canyon's Phantom Ranch and the lower North Kaibab Trail on Saturday, according to park officials.

The flood hit around 2:30 p.m. local time in the Bright Angel Canyon and Phantom Ranch areas of the Grand Canyon amid a monsoonal downpour that produced "a significant flash-flood event," officials said.

Erica Viola and her husband, Scott Svedin, told ABC News they were camping at Bright Angel Campground when they were told to evacuate immediately.

"This was something out of a movie," said Svedin, who described struggling through knee-high water and mud to reach safety.

Viola added, "We just heard people yell, 'Run, Run, Run.' And there's 40 of us running through this deep muddy water trying to make it to the bridge."