“I turned to the dogs and told them to wait. When I turned back to Zoe, she was no longer there. She had just vanished. It must have happened in less than five seconds,” the woman's husband said.
A woman traveling with her husband and two dogs was killed after she accidentally plunged 100 feet off the edge of a cliff in Belgium while posing for a photo, according to published reports.
Zoe Snoeks, 33, fell off the precipice near the village of Nadrin in the province of Luxembourg on Tuesday and landed in the Ourthe River, according to the public prosecutor’s office, Newsflash reported.
Before the tragic fall, Snoeks' husband, Joeri Janssen, said his wife was taking photos and told him to “look out for the dogs.”
“I turned to the dogs and told them to wait. When I turned back to Zoe, she was no longer there. She had just vanished. It must have happened in less than five seconds,” Janssen said.
He continued: “I didn’t see or hear anything. No rustling, no screams or shouts. I looked up and saw only dust,” he said. “I called her even though I knew it was hopeless. The chasm was several tens of meters deep.”
Janssen said he immediately called the emergency services, who at first could not find her.
Her body was later recovered by a team of police, firefighters, scuba divers, and members of the Perilous Environment Reconnaissance and Intervention Group, The Gazette reported.
The grief-stricken husband said the couple had left on Sunday in their camper van they called "Freedom" to the scenic area with their two dogs, Ivy and Joy, a report said.
“We got up very early to take pictures of the Herou,” he told News360, referring to a 4,600-foot-high rock face that rises almost vertically above the Ourthe River. “There is almost always mist there. It’s great for photos. We arrived before 9 a.m.”
The couple had met in school and married in 2012. Janssen said his wife’s passion was taking photographs, News360 reported.
“Since the pandemic, it was our little thing to drive across Europe in our van and take beautiful photos,” Janssen said.
On the day of the tragedy the couple was planning to return home to the province of Limburg, a report said.
Janssen said, "I immediately unlocked her phone and saw that she had taken a photo on the cliff edge. Her very last selfie,” according to Yahoo News Australia. “Zoe is looking straight ahead. You can also see the mist and the river where they finally found her body.”
On Instagram, Snoeks' profile caption reads, “my favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been.” Her Instagram account is filled with breathtaking photos of her past adventures to the Swiss Alps, Normandie, Amsterdam, Mont Saint Michel, Iceland, Lunersee, among others.
On Sept. 7, she posted a poignant video on Instagram about a short road trip she and her husband had taken through Luxembourg.
“When you start living for the small moments that is when you really know you are living. The smell of coffee in the morning. The sound of rain hitting your roof. The different colors of the sunset,” Snoeks said. “Don’t get me wrong the big moments are great when they come, but damn those small moments... those are the ones that truly make life worth living.”
Related Stories
