SPANISH FORK, Utah — While the Summit Medical Spa in Spanish Fork looks like a normal building on the outside, you could never tell how much love radiated on the inside.
“We met back in 2007. We were both working at the Red Mountain Spa in St. George, and my first impression of Katrina was, I love you already, and we're going to be friends whether you want to or not,” said Katrina Long’s best friend and business partner, Sam Butler.
Provo firefighter, his wife, and 3 sons killed by flash flood in southern Utah:
Butler started the business with Katrina eight and a half years ago and proved that you can work with a best friend.
“I've heard that so many partnerships end badly, and I trust Katrina with my family, with my life, and with the lives of all of our team members here,” Butler said.
Susy Clyde works in real estate and simply went in to highlight their spa and walked out with a new friendship.
“I said, 'You know that you have queen energy, right?' And of course, because she's humble, she's like, 'No, no, no,'” Clyde said. "It's the way she takes care of her people in such a way… I love everything about Katrina.”
Katrina, her husband Spencer and their three boys went on a trip to Sunglow Campground on Friday, but the following day they were supposed to have plans with Clyde’s family.
“When they didn't show up, that's just not, that's not Katrina, that's not even Spencer,” Clyde said. "We started calling and her phone just rang and rang and rang.”
Butler was out of town at a softball tournament when she got the life-changing phone call that Spencer and two of the boys had died in a flash flood, but Katrina and her other boy were still missing.
“I just kept thinking to myself, I could run over real quick. I can be a part of the search party and find my best friend,” Butler said through tears.
However, by Saturday, all of them were found, and there were no survivors — except for Katrina’s daughter Lydia, who was not on the trip.
"Lydia is a mini me, a mini version of her mom, and she has so much strength and so much grit, and she is still here because her story is just getting started,” Butler said. "She is going to do phenomenal things in this world, and she is going through so much right now. But if there's anybody who has resilience and strength and love to put into this world and give everything that she knows her mom and her siblings would be proud of, it's Lydia."
Butler now has one goal: to make the business everything Katrina hoped it would be.
“Our story was just getting started. I'm going to miss all of the things that we were supposed to do together, but I will make her so proud with what we do moving forward,” Butler said.
