Hiker Slipped by Safety Fence —a Fatal Mistake

Oregon's Cape Kiwanda sees another death
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 7, 2023 1:06 PM CST
Hiker Slipped by Safety Fence —a Fatal Mistake
In this photo taken June 29, 2016, Lisa Stevenson, right, a park ranger with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, talks to a man and his daughter who walked through the fence at Cape Kiwanda State Natural Area in Cloverdale, Ore.   (Zach Urness/Statesman-Journal via AP)

The "deadliest spot on the Oregon Coast" has claimed another victim. A 25-year-old California man fell from a rocky bluff at Cape Kiwanda State Natural Area on Saturday and was pronounced dead a day later, reports the Salem Statesman Journal. State police said Henry Minh Hoang had hiked beyond a safety fence at the popular site with a headland offering stunning ocean views, whose sandstone cliffs can crumble suddenly, when he fell 20 feet. "The victim was reportedly knocked unconscious from the fall and was swept into the ocean by the waves," according to a release.

His body was found Sunday afternoon on the shoreline, at the base of another cliff, per CNN. He's just the latest to die at the site. A fatal accident in 2009 led to the extension of safety fencing, now running for 1,275 feet. But six more deaths would occur from 2014 to 2016, when an inquiry was launched. Many of the victims, aged 17 to 25, were found to have ignored warning signs and ventured beyond safety fences, as Hoang is said to have done.

Slick Rick Nelson, 17, was with a group that ventured to the top of the dune under cover of darkness in June 2015 when he "tried to sit down and there was nothing there, and he was just gone," a witness told the Statesman Journal in 2016. The park's website warns of the dangers of moving beyond safety fences, noting several people have died in the act. "Don't do it. The views are spectacular from the established viewpoints, on the safe side of the fence," it reads, per CBS News. "Beyond the fence, the cliff edge can—and will—crumble without warning." (More Oregon stories.)

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