Arlene Richardson and her daughter, Samantha, visited the USS Arizona Memorial on Thursday in honor of their husband and father, Samuel Richardson, 66, who fell 40 feet to his death April 23 while on a vacation hike on the Lanikai Pillbox Trail.

Arlene Richardson said, “My husband wanted to come here. It’s one of the reasons that he wanted to visit Hawaii. He had a connection because his father was stationed in Hawaii in 1955.”

Hawaii’s strong military presence also held special interest for Samuel Richardson, who served in the National Guard and worked at WSSC Water, one of the nation’s largest water and waste utilities, before his retirement in 2021.

Arlene Richardson said she had retired in 2019, and the couple, who were so in love that they got married six months after meeting, were looking forward to celebrating their 39th wedding anniversary this year and enjoying some of the retirement plans that they had put off because of the pandemic.

She said the family had tried to make it to Hawaii to celebrate Samuel’s birthday during the pandemic but had to cancel. They rescheduled their first trip to Hawaii to mark the birthday of their daughter Samantha, a self­-proclaimed daddy’s girl, who was named for her father.

The trip started with such promise, but the tragedy happened on the family’s first full day in Hawaii and on Samantha’s 30th birthday.

“All my teachers knew him. He was the book reader. He was my Girl Scout leader,” Samantha Richardson said. “We were inseparable. We went everywhere together,” including the hike, which Samantha said she chose after researching trails on Oahu and determining that Lanikai Pillbox looked less challenging than Diamond Head.

“I felt like they downplayed how steep it was,” she said. “The area where he fell is pretty steep, and I felt that there needed to be a rope like they had at the entrance.”

Richardson said she was on a steep part of the trail when she saw her father take a step and try to balance himself. She heard falling rocks, and discovered how far he had tumbled and thought it was hopeless, though she said her father did not die immediately.

The Honolulu Fire Department said Samuel Richardson suffered an undisclosed medical emergency while hiking and tumbled about 40 feet down the trail. His cause of death is still pending, the medical examiner’s office said Monday.

Samantha Richardson said she and her mother have heard that the state plans to spend about $1 million to address erosion and improve signage on the trail. They hope follow-up is prompt to improve safety and reduce the number of rescues and injuries, even deaths.

Arlene Richardson said, “I’m feeling sad, and I’m just trying to hold it together. I miss him. He had a kind heart and a great presence about him.”

Mother and daughter said they could feel Samuel Richardson’s presence at the USS Arizona Memorial, a bittersweet stop arranged by Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii President and CEO Jessica Lani Rich, who along with volunteer Bob Gentry assisted the grief-stricken Maryland family on the day of the death and continued to provide personalized support throughout their seven-day stay in Hawaii. Rich accompanied the pair to the memorial.

The Richardsons said VASH’s presence has been critical as it has provided them with a support system while they are far from home. The pair was saddened to hear that funding for VASH is at risk.

Samantha Richardson said, “Hawaii is a top vacation destination. There are people from around the world that come here, even from the East Coast like us. We don’t know anybody here. Having someone so well connected, who knows the system, has been a godsend. It helps to reduce the confusion. We would not have had such a straightforward, laid-out way of how to process this without them.”

Rich said she is grateful that VASH had the resources to help the Richardson family, and hopes that the agency’s mission can continue despite the uncertainty of funding for the Hawaii Tourism Authority. Rich said HTA’s contribution is by far VASH’s primary means of support, though VASH also receives funding from the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association, the Kosasa Foundation and various hotels.

On Friday a conference committee of lawmakers potentially left HTA without funding this year when they deferred House Bill 1375, the most viable vehicle to fund the agency after its operational budget was left out of the final version of a state budget bill. HTA had requested a budget of $75 million this year to make up for shortfalls in 2022 and $60 million for 2024; however, the move has left it with about $30 million in leftover federal American Rescue Plan Act funds.

HTA President and CEO John De Fries said Friday in a statement that “HTA’s work in holistic, integrated destination management, visitor education and brand marketing is in jeopardy.”

“Our leadership team and board of directors will be making tough decisions in the coming days about canceling active procurements, existing contracts, and ongoing community work,” De Fries said.

Rich said the future of VASH, which employs two full-time people and four part-time people, is uncertain.

“I will ask to be put on the agenda for HTA’s May meeting to see if HTA has any funds,” she said. “I just have to continue to help visitors and try to figure out how to operate.”

Any new cuts to VASH’s budget would be on top of this year’s cut, she said. In 2022, HTA appropriated $370,000 to VASH. This year’s appropriation was cut to $285,000, which occurred after lawmakers during the 2022 session also left HTA out of the budget and then failed to reach agreement on a bill that had an appropriation to fund it.

But in that case, lawmakers tried at the eleventh hour to amend a capital improvements bill to include HTA’s budget. Gov. David Ige vetoed that bill for using so-called “gut and replace” but funded HTA with $35 million in federal ARPA funds. It’s unclear whether lawmakers have other options, or the will, to provide HTA with funding this year.

Since its inception more than 25 years ago, VASH is one of the few programs in the country that works with visitors in crisis. Rich said its services are needed today more than ever as Hawaii tourism is rebounding and visitors like the Richardsons who postponed trips complete their travel.

Rich said from during the first quarter of this year, VASH has worked 126 cases and assisted 303 visitors, including their families. Rich said VASH served 1,897 people in 818 separate cases in 2019. The numbers dropped some in 2020 due to drastic reductions in tourism. By 2021, VASH was back up to 676 cases and 1,739 visitors, and in 2022 it worked 548 cases involving 1,456 visitors — and that’s with a continued lag in international arrivals.

Rich said that at VASH she routinely works with people in trauma, who are possibly having the worst day of their life. She said VASH’s mission has broadened since its inception in 1997, which was inspired by rising crimes against visitors. Rich said VASH now helps visitors in crisis from a variety of scenarios, including illness and death.

“If VASH weren’t there, a lot of times visitors would be completely alone,” Rich said. “Our visitors are thousands of miles from home. We are a safety net for them. I’m a total stranger when VASH shows up, but we transition into people that they trust and people that they know are there to support them.”