Accident scenario:
She's on the work call and needs the loo, but isn't able to go at the campsite and is too far from home.
She leaves her phone behind, drops the harness, and quickly looks for a bush or undergrowth she can hide behind, away from the path and closer to the river.
Before, during (while squatting), or after (washing her hands), she slips or loses balance and falls into the river.
Reasoning:
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- She left her phone on the bench or near because she didn't want her colleagues to accidentally hear, or to touch her phone without washing her hands first.
- Loss of balance - 50% of menopausal people have vertigo as a symptom, or Willow could have knocked her. Plus, it's a steep bank.
- She could had gone some distance up or down river before finding somewhere with enough coverage to crouch behind.
- No one saw her entering the water, as she was disguised by whatever she chose to hide behind. Ditto her body, and any signs of a struggle.
- If her clothes were disarranged, they would limit her ability to save herself in the water. (The PM may verify this.)
- Even if she were fully clothed, she could have fallen while washing her hands.
- She could have gone over the weir before the river levels dropped in the hours and days after she disappeared.
My background: former investigator (some search experience but mostly paper-based), post-menopausal, current wild swimmer (river, lake and sea), dog walker in countryside (UK).
Along with a myriad other symptoms, I had vertigo during my menopause. I've fallen over myself while crouched.
Once, I fell backwards down into a ditch. My backpack stopped me rolling to the side - I was stranded like a turtle. I'm very lucky it was nettles rather than water I landed in, as the effort to eventually get out (an inclined sit up) was enough to badly strain my stomach muscles. Could I have done that in water? Probably not.
Did my dogs come in with me? No, they sat by the side of the ditch.
Cold water shock is something most wild swimmers are aware of. We often discuss what we can to avoid accidents around areas such as the Wyre (steep sides and cold hands are not a good combination). Identifying where we can safely get out, judging the currents, depths, and other safety aspects is crucial. I also spend a lot of time looking at rivers to see if I could safely swim in them.
That week, I was tracking the local river level every day (a friend isn't keen on the sea when it's either rough or polluted). It easily dropped by over a foot and decreased flow rate in a few hours or day after NB went missing. Rivers do when there's little rain.
I've been lucky enough to avoid cold water shock - the closest I came was entering the river too quickly last winter - my chest was exceedingly tight and I felt short of air.
When younger, I fell off my pony into three feet of swollen, wintry river, but someone was with me and I managed to stand up, eventually climb out and get home. I can't recall the clothes being a massive burden in that depth.
IME, the shock would have only disabled her that if the clothes were incredibly waterlogged in a deep section of river, or she had gone in head first, in a position she couldn't escape, or unconscious.
For me, in the above incidents, the holes in the cheese didn't quite line up.
For NB, it appears the holes in the cheese tragically did line up.
