A bike ride among some friends along the 57-mile New River State Park bike trail in Virginia ended in tragedy recently when a rock slab broke loose from an overhang and killed a cyclist.
Park officials say the rock fall “appears to have been an isolated natural act.” It's the second time since the abandoned railroad bed was converted to a trail that someone has been killed by a falling rock.
According to reports, Sudie Jenkins Hatcher, 48, from High Point, N.C., was riding with friends in the Austinville area of the trail on Oct. 20. A slab from a rock overhang broke loose, rolled down a hill before it tumbled through the air and struck Hatcher.
The rock measured about three feet by one foot. The park manager doubted anyone could even hear it fall.
Her friends tried to help her and contacted 911. Emergency crews arrived within 13 minutes and she was taken to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
The New River State Park trail runs along the New River in southern Virginia. The Norfolk & Western Railway donated the land in 1986 and the packed cinder trail opened two years later. It connects Pulaski with Galax in a particularly scenic part of the state.
It features two short tunnels and three major bridges, as well as numerous other shorter bridges and trestles. It's about a five-hour drive from Richmond and an hour and a half from Roanoke.
The Roanoke Times reports that in 1999, a piece of limestone broke off the 215-foot arch on Natural Bridge in Rockbridge County and killed a tourist who was reading a plaque.
A spokesman for the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation told the Roanoke Times that generally the state hasn't had geologists survey the rock overhangs for dangerous locations, although one slide area along the trail has been blasted and stabilized.
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