Aug. 06--A man died on Sunday after falling nearly 100 feet while hiking in the Cantwell Cliffs area of Hocking Hills State Park, officials said yesterday.
Zachary M. Doherty, 18, of Uniontown in Stark County, was off the posted trail near the waterfall when he fell about 7:40 p.m., Hocking County Coroner David Cummin said. Cummin pronounced him dead at the scene.
Hocking County EMS, the Hocking Hills Rope Rescue Team, state park officers and others also responded to the report that someone had fallen.
Doherty was hiking with his girlfriend. She was a short distance away and took a photo of him standing near the waterfall moments before he fell, Cummin said.
This was the first fatal cliff fall this year in the Hocking Hills park about 50 miles southeast of Columbus, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources said.
Last year, three people were killed in cliff falls: two hikers at Hocking Hills State Park and a rock rappeller in Hocking State Forest.
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