CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. -- Thirty years of friendship brings on all kinds of memories, and Sunlen Serfaty was close friends with Chesterfield County firefighter Alicia Monahan since they were both in elementary school students in Chesterfield.
“She always took care of everyone in our group,” Serfaty said. “She’s a part of my heart, she’s a part of who I am.”
Monahan, who was an 11-year veteran of the fire department, died on Saturday during a swift water rescue course she was helping teach on the Nantahala River outside Bryson City, North Carolina.
The 41-year-old mother of two was off duty at the time, officials said.
“It’s hard to wrap your head around something so tragic happening. It’s very hard when that person is a hero in your eyes,” Serfaty said. “It didn’t seem real. Alicia is a larger-than-life person. She is so strong and so in control of every situation, I could not have imagined that anything like this could have happened to her.”
Funny, adventurous, and full of life, Serfaty said her friend was tenacious about improving herself and helping others.
“She loved pushing ahead to do better and to me, that’s her greatest legacy: her service and all she did to help other people,” she said.
Chesterfield Fire officials said the circumstances around Monahan’s death are being investigated by North Carolina authorities.
According to those on the scene, Monahan was showing a group of trainees a swimming technique in the river when she suddenly became unresponsive, officials said.
Despite efforts to resuscitate her both at the river and on the way to the hospital, officials said Monahan was pronounced dead Saturday evening.
Monahan and the other instructor teaching the swift water rescue course had years of experience on the Nantahala River and conditions were favorable that day, officials said.
Chesterfield Fire was not involved with the course being taught.
In her 11 years in the department, Chesterfield Fire Chief Loy Senter said Monahan quickly become a valuable leader, both inside her assigned firehouse and to hundreds of new recruits during their interview process.
“She set the bar for a lot of our new recruits coming through the door,” Senter said. “She was so driven. She had accomplished so much in just 11 short years with our department and was on a pathway to be a leader in this organization. Her loss is a great one for this organization.”
Senter said Monahan was the only woman on Chesterfield’s Swift Water Rescue Team. She became a mentor and example for many young women within the department and others she helped through various non-profits and community organizations, Senter said.
“I think she was driven from a very early age, even before she joined our organization, and that passion continued as she achieved different levels of training and accomplishments here in the department,” he said. “She was a leader and set a great example for her co-workers, and as I said before, for so many young women who were aspiring to join the fire service or do something greater than themselves.”
Monahan was credited for multiple lifesaving efforts during her time with the fire department. In 2018, she and two other firefighters were recognized with a Bronze Valor Award by the Retail Merchants Association after rescuing a person trapped on the roof of their car in swift, rising flood waters.
A graduate of Clover Hill High School and Radford University, Monahan was also a K9 handler for the Virginia Search and Rescue Dog Association, worked as a whitewater raft guide for RVA Paddlesports and Riverside Outfitters, and as an instructor in search and rescue with the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.
Monahan also worked with the non-profit She Jumps, which works to get more women and girls involved in outdoor activities.
Of all the things she accomplished, Serfaty said Monahan was most proud of were her two teenage sons.
“Being a mom, I think was Alicia’s greatest joy. She loves [her boys] so much,” Serfaty said, adding just last week Monahan told her she was looking forward to so much more time with them as they got older.
“It definitely was her greatest accomplishment, those two boys,” she said.
As the fire department, her friends, and family try to process the great loss, Serfaty is also reminded of a quote Monahan placed at the top of her social media page.
“‘If I make it to the point in my life where the sliver transcends the copper in my hair and my eyes twinkle with years of adventure and knowledge, I never want to look back on my life and wonder what if,’” Serfaty read. “[Alicia] wrote those words and I think they’re so fitting because she doesn’t have to wonder what if. She did a lot of the things she wanted to do. She had a beautiful family, wonderful friends, and people that cared about her.”
The Medical Examiner in North Carolina will determine the cause of death. Funeral arrangements have not been announced.
