Mother grieves for missing Marine: ‘It’s starting to sink in, but there’s still hope’

After five days without finding any survivors in the waters of Hawaii, the search for the 12 Marines missing after two helicopters apparently collided was called off Tuesday night.

The end of the search is just the beginning of the nightmare for one southern Colorado woman.

Laurie Allen’s son, Sgt. Jeffrey Sempler, was one of the Marines on one of the helicopters that crashed off Oahu.

“It’s starting to sink in that….I just, I can’t give up hope yet,” Allen said.

Allen said it’s been six days of numbness and disbelief since she first heard the news about the crash.

“I just knew, I called his cellphone and he didn’t pick up and I knew,” she said.

And then a knock came at her door.

“When I saw the Marines, that’s when I hit the floor,” Allen said. “Your heart just sinks; that’s something you don’t want to see.”

But for five days, she held strong to hope he would be found.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever considered myself an optimist, but I just have some kind of a gut feeling that there’s a little tiny bit of hope that I can’t let go of it, not yet, not until the final say so,” she said.

Sempler was less than three weeks away from coming home on leave.

He was already making plans with Allen for his return.

“One of our good friends is in the Navy and she’s graduating so we were going to go to her graduation and that would start his leave,” she said.

Allen said it’s been hard being so far away from the search. She’s considering flying to Hawaii to help with recovery efforts.

And she already has hopeful plans for when her son is found.

“His favorite cookies are oatmeal scotchies and I was planning on making them for his birthday,” she said tearfully. “I know it sounds silly but that’s what he likes.”

There was a vigil held Wednesday night for Sempler. There will be a spaghetti dinner fundraiser next Saturday night to help the family out.