Cassandra Bravo could intimidate people with her direct approach.
Friends and family members also described Bravo as “no-nonsense,” “blunt” and, sometimes, in less charitable terms.
But beneath that crust, those same people said, was a woman who dedicated her life to helping others, protecting her children and helping friends realize their dreams.
Those are the qualities being mourned after Bravo, 34, a Riverside resident, died Nov. 7, two days after a fall off a hiking trail near Mt. Whitney in the Eastern Sierras. Bravo had worked at Loma Linda University Medical Center as a registered nurse since April 2019.
Bravo worked as an emergency medical technician, nursing home employee, emergency room technician, Meals on Wheels delivery person and registered nurse.
Rebecca Villasenor remembers meeting Bravo, who many called Cassie, when they worked in the emergency room at Kaiser Permanente in Riverside.
“I gotta say my first impression of her was this girl is a hard ass. I don’t wanna get on her bad side,” Villasenor said. “But as I began to get to know her, I soon realized what amazing things were beneath that hard exterior. We quickly developed a friendship that would withstand anything.”
Luisa Moya, who credited Bravo with pushing her to complete her nursing license, said, “She was very blunt, and sometimes people were too sensitive for her, but once you got to know her, you’d know that wasn’t her heart at all. She was fierce. She loved hard.”
Moya said Bravo once bristled when a nurse told Bravo’s children that a vaccine was not going to hurt.
“Why are you lying to them? Just tell them it will hurt but they will be OK,” Moya recalled Bravo saying.
Said Villasenor: “I can still hear her say, ‘I love you boo, but you’re still dumb.’ “
When Moya took a break after completing nursing school while working full time, Bravo urged her to study for the state test. Bravo said Moya would pass, and she did.
“When she believed in you, you believed in yourself,” Moya said.
Bravo was “the sweetest girl” but always tough, said her parents, Elizabeth and Mark Hawley, who came out from Boise, Idaho, to watch Bravo’s children after her death. They said she played football — tackle football — in junior high and stood up for her brother when he was bullied.
“She was tiny, but she was a fighter,” Elizabeth Hawley said.
The Hawleys said their daughter would do anything for her children, Jonathan, 10, and Prudence, 7. Bravo, who was divorced, was building a swimming pool for them in their backyard at the time of her death.
Jonathan said his mother never let him go anywhere without her permission and always made him wear a helmet while riding his bicycle.
“She loved me,” Jonathan said. “She made sure I was safe. She made sure everybody was happy. She was just so kind, and it was perfect.”
Bravo loved more than her own children; she was a neighborhood mom.
Villasenor said her children and neighbors’ children spent a lot of time at Bravo’s home.
“Cassie only had two children but went out and bought a minivan so that in her words, ‘all the little monsters could fit,’ Villasenor said.
Bravo was with Jonathan on Nov. 5. She dropped him off in Lone Pine where she was meeting a cousin and went on a hike on the spur of the moment at Whitney Portal. She was experienced and liked to run up and down Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside, among other places, with Moya.
Mark Hawley said his daughter veered off the Whitney trail and was critically injured when she fell 100 feet.
After she failed to contact her family that evening, the Inyo County sheriff’s office was notified that she was missing. Her car was found Nov. 6 at the Whitney Portal trailhead, at 8,400 feet elevation.
Her family and friends started a search that day, and search-and-rescue personnel joined on Nov. 7. Bravo was discovered at the bottom of a steep rocky slope next to the trail. She was conscious but very cold, dressed in a tank top and leggings.
Bravo had apparently survived to that point because she was able to crawl a long distance to a shelter beneath a log, Mark Hawley said.
“She was tough. Really tough,” he said.
Bravo was airlifted from the ravine and taken to Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, where she died.
But part of Bravo will live on, Moya said.
“I feel like that spirit of hers can live in everybody,” Moya said. “She made you feel like you deserved the world.”
A GoFundMe page was established to benefit the children.
A celebration of life will be held for Bravo on Nov. 21 at 10 a.m. at The Grove Community Church in Riverside.
The Link LonkNovember 14, 2020 at 09:34AM
https://www.pe.com/2020/11/13/riverside-woman-was-fierce-loved-hard-before-dying-in-hiking-accident
Riverside woman ‘was fierce, loved hard’ before dying in hiking accident - Press-Enterprise
https://news.google.com/search?q=hard&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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