14 and dead - how sad
I was at the South rim of the Grand Canyon a few years ago and asked a ranger how many people fall each year. “Oh, about half a dozen, and most of them are teen-aged boys”, he said. This lead me to read a book written about people who fell from the Grand Canyon. One episode was suprizingly comical. A body was spotted on a ledge some distance below a steep canyon rim. It appeared to be partially covered by some type of a blanket, and was not moving. Something seemed especially odd about the position of the legs which they concluded were badly broken. A large recovery operation was mounted, and a volunteer was slowly lowered down to the ledge. Once he got there, the rescuer no longer responded to his colleagues by radio. Those above assumed he was overcome with emotion and grimly proceeded to haul him back up with the body. When he got to the top, he threw down a large GI Joe type doll with toy parachute down without saying a word.