‘Something you don’t forget,’ officer says 10 years after digging for missing boys in deadly St. Paul landslide

Mara H. Gottfried, Pioneer Press
·3 min read

On the anniversary of a landslide at St. Paul’s Lilydale Regional Park, police officer Amanda Heu looks at photos of Haysem Sani, 9, and Mohamed Fofana, 10.

Heu, one of the first responding officers on May 22, 2013, dug with her bare hands through the sand and soil to try to reach the boys, who were on a fourth-grade field trip. Others joined in to help and firefighters arrived with rescue equipment, but Haysem and Mohamed died.

“It’s something that you just don’t forget,” said Heu, now a commander in the St. Paul Police Central District, on Monday. “It’s a reminder for me of how precious life is.”

Mohmed’s parents have been working toward starting a school in his memory, and Lancine Fofana said Monday they plan to start with three first-grade classes in September and expand from there. The Mohamed Fofana Memorial School will be in Lancine Fofana’s native Guinea in western Africa.

“This idea came from Mohamed himself,” Fofana said in 2015. When the boy had visited, he asked his mother why the kids didn’t go to school. Mohamed wrote for a school project that he planned to become a professional soccer player and build a school and soccer field in Siguiri, Guinea.

A rush to help

The children were on a fossil-gathering field trip May 22, 2023, from Peter Hobart Elementary School in St. Louis Park when a bluff of rain-sodden sand and broken shale collapsed on them. Three children were missing in the rubble; two died and one survived.

As multiple officers headed to the large park on St. Paul’s West Side 10 years ago, “it was a scramble at that point to hurry up and find someone to try and pinpoint where this was,” Heu said.

Heu said she remembers heading into the park and finally hearing people calling out for help, and then she ran the rest of the way. She and now-retired officer David Odlaug located the group first.

“It was very muddy, sandy,” Heu said. “It was quite surreal. It was reminiscent of how you would imagine quicksand.”

They couldn’t see any of the missing children, and she and Odlaug started digging with their hands. Heu called for more help and tools, providing information about their exact location.

“We were frantic in how we were digging,” she said. “The more you dig, the more sand fell on top of you.” It reached to at least Heu and Odlaug’s waists.

In her digging, Heu uncovered the hand of one of the boys and Odlaug rushed to help dig, but the child had already passed away.

“It’s part of the scars that officers carry in doing their duties and it’s something for us, especially with this call in particular, that stays with us for our entire careers, whether on duty or off duty,” Heu said.

Boy’s father: ‘Feels like it happened yesterday’

Lancine Fofana said he can’t believe it’s been 10 years. Mohamed’s younger brothers, who are twins and were a year behind him in school, are now students at the University of St. Thomas, their father said.

“It feels like it happened yesterday,” Fofana said of Mohamed. “It’s something we accepted, but never forgot about it.”

The city of St. Paul hired a consultant for professional engineering services at Lilydale Regional Park including erosion evaluation, stormwater management, ravine and steep-slope stabilization, tree plantings and restoration, according to Parks and Recreation spokeswoman Clare Cloyd. The work was completed in 2019 and the Brickyard Trail reopened with restrictions to high-risk areas.

The St. Paul City Council approved a $1 million settlement in 2014 to the families of the two children killed and the boy injured in the landslide.

Mohamed’s Dream

Information about plans for Mohamed Fofana Memorial School and how to donate can be found at mohamedsdream.com.

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