One person died and another was hurt in separate falls at Hocking Hills State Park in southeast Ohio this weekend. As Michael Locklear of Ohio Public Radio station W-O-U-B reports, both fell more than 50 feet after straying from marked trails.
A college student was hiking with friends at Old Man’s Cave when they went off the trail. A spokesman for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources says the 19-year-old climbed a rock wall but lost his grip on the way back down. Josias Rodriguez fell 60 feet and died Saturday afternoon. Ohio Christian University says he was a sophomore at its campus in Circleville. The university canceled finals today, and a memorial service was scheduled for this afternoon. In a separate fall, a 23-year-old woman fell a hundred feet after leaving a trail in the Hocking Hills. She was life-flighted to a Columbus hospital where she was having surgery Saturday night. The O-D-N-R spokesman wasn’t sure of her name or her condition.
