‘Nothing short of a miracle.’ Boy, 4, survives 70-foot fall at Red River Gorge.
Calling it “nothing short of a miracle,” the Wolfe County Search and Rescue Team said a 4-year-old boy who tumbled off a cliff in the Red River Gorge survived a fall of about 70 feet with only scrapes and bruises.
The rescue group said the child was hiking with his parents near Princess Arch when he slipped away from them and fell, hitting “multiple ledges” and encountering “sheer drops” of about 30 feet. He fell a total of about 70 feet, and his father scrambled down after him.
The father carried the child downhill, “crossing the Red River at the Sheltowee Trace suspension bridge.”
The Wolfe County Search & Rescue Team said that by the time they were called just after 2 p.m., “the father was already on the move,” and they met up with him as he arrived at Ky. 715. The boy was examined by Breathitt-Wolfe EMS and released back to his parents.
“Incredibly, while the child was certainly scraped up and bruised, he appeared to be otherwise okay,” the rescue team wrote in a Facebook post. “He was very talkative, and very interested in super heroes. The only super hero present was him.”
This story was originally published October 15, 2021 at 8:28 PM.
