Last Person Who Saw Nancy Ng Before She Went Missing During Guatemala Yoga Retreat Speaks Out

Through an attorney, Christina Blazek claims she warned Ng of Lake Atitlán’s dangerous conditions before she entered the water and disappeared

A California woman remains missing after disappearing on a yoga retreat in Guatemala last month. Now, the last person to see her is speaking out for the first time.

Nancy Ng, 29, went missing in Lake Atitlán on Oct. 19, according to a GoFundMe previously shared by family.

Christina Blazek, a San Bernardino County public defender, was at the same retreat before the Monterey Park woman’s disappearance, her attorney, G. Christopher Gardner, told ABC affiliate KABC-TV.

Gardner said his client crossed paths with Ng while they were both kayaking on the lake, per KABC-TV. At one point, Ng expressed interest in going swimming, the attorney alleged, claiming that Blazek encouraged her not to “because it was rough out there and there was a good current.”

Blazek’s lawyer claimed that Ng entered the water anyway and then pushed her kayak away. Blazek helped retrieve the kayak, but was unable to get Ng to safety.

“[Blazek] kept one leg in her kayak and one leg in the other kayak and tried to get back to [Ng]… and got close to her,” the attorney told KABC-TV. “And then apparently, she lost the kayak again and she turned around to go back to get the kayak again, and when she turned back around, Ms. Ng was gone.”

Blazek quickly sought help after the incident, according to Gardner. Police later told the woman “there was nothing that could be done” and that the lake “is known for having people drown on it,” he added.

PEOPLE reached out to Gardner for comment.

Blazek has been criticized for supposedly remaining silent during the weeks-long search for Ng, KABC-TV reported. Members of Ng’s family claim this is the first time they have heard this story — and they want to know why it took so long to share the information with them.
“If it is like she says and it is an accident, I don’t understand how she could choose to leave my family in the dark for almost four weeks, and not just say that from the start,” Ng’s younger sister, Nicky, told the outlet.

The sister previously claimed the woman who witnessed the incident was not included in the police’s report, according to CW affiliate KTLA. The group Ng was traveling with reportedly left their hotel within 12 hours of the incident and did not pay their bill for the kayak excursion.

Ng’s family claimed to have reached out to Blazek multiple times, but Gardner told KABC-TV that his client has been coping with the trauma she experienced as a result of the incident.

“I hope she can understand that we have no account of what happened because she is the only person that saw what happened, and it wasn’t included in the report,” Ng’s sister told KABC-TV.

More than $91,000 has been raised via GoFundMe following Ng’s disappearance. In a Nov. 13 update shared on the fundraising site, organizer Jared Lopez said that the money donated so far has helped the family hire an attorney in Guatemala, allowing them to participate in the investigation overseas and fund “multiple searches” of the lake.

Remaining funds will go toward “ongoing and future search efforts” and “additional attorney fees” as well as “rental equipment, transportation, and lodging” for search and recovery teams, Lopez shared.

Money will also go toward “travel expenses for the family, who intend to travel to Guatemala when the deep water search team conducts their search,” Lopez wrote. He added, “None of this would happen without you. Your support, kind words, and determination to bring Nancy home give us hope that she won’t be forgotten and this case won’t go cold.”

source: people.com