Summer hike turns tragic when parents tumble off cliff
When William and Amanda Green took their two boys on a weekend outing, they headed for the Zoar Valley Gorge, a rugged area not far from their Buffalo, New York, home that includes waterfalls, forests and cliffs that plunge as much as 40 stories.
But a summer hike turned tragic when both parents were found dead Sunday near a creek at the bottom of the gorge. Their 4-year-old son, Alexander, was nearby with severe injuries, and their 7-year-old, Jacob, though less severely injured, was found hours later wandering the gorge floor alone.
Police on Monday were still trying to piece together exactly how the tragedy unfolded, though they said it appeared that the parents and Alexander fell about 200 feet (60 metres) down the cliff.
“It’s sheer. It drops straight down,” Erie County sheriff’s spokesman Scott Zylka said of the area where the family was found.