Hiker Killed in Marin Trail Collapse was Preschool Teacher

By Bay City News Service:

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office is providing additional details on the rescue and recovery of two people who fell when Arch Rock at the Point Reyes National Seashore collapsed Saturday afternoon.

Nancy Blum, 58, of San Francisco, died in the fall and a male hiker was seriously injured and was taken to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

Blum was a teacher at The Serra Preschool in San Francisco.

“She was a dear teacher and friend for a decade,” the school’s founder Marybeth Cody said Monday afternoon.

Blum and a man were standing near the end of a trail when the cliff unexpectedly gave way, causing them to fall down the cliffside, National Park Service officials said.

The sheriff’s office’s Henry-1 helicopter crew was dispatched to the site around 5:45 p.m. The crew arrived at 6:02 p.m. when there were no other emergency personnel on the scene and saw about 50 feet of the cliff had collapsed and crumbled approximately 75 feet to the beach below, sheriff’s Sgt. Cecile Focha said.

Several people were standing in the rubble signaling the helicopter by waving their hands, and some people in the rubble in the surf line were assisting one of two victims, Focha said.

Other bystanders 50 feet above the victim in the surf line were assisting the second victim, but it was unclear if the victims were trapped in the rubble, Focha said.

When the helicopter landed on the beach, a paramedic assessed the victims and determined Blum, who was in the upper portion of the rubble, had suffered significant injuries and needed immediate extraction, Focha said.

The paramedic and several bystanders pulled Blum from the rubble and strapped her into a stretcher attached to a 100-foot-long line. The tactical flight officer and Blum were flown for about a mile suspended from the helicopter to the trailhead at the Bear Valley Visitor Center.

The Marin County Fire Department pronounced Blum dead at the scene, Focha said.

The helicopter returned to the second victim who was alive but injured and complaining of pain, Focha said.

He was trapped under a large rock and was then in the surf of a rising tide, Focha said.

Incoming fog limited the time to rescue the second victim and there were no other emergency personnel at the scene, Focha said.

The crew quickly secured the man in the stretcher and he was flown to the staging area where an air ambulance crew was waiting to fly him to a trauma center, Focha said.

National Park Service officials said they had put up signs in the area and an advisory on their website earlier last week to warn about a fissure that appeared at the tip of the Arch Rock overlook, and to warn visitors to not hike to the end of the trail.

Arch Rock trail has been closed until further notice, Point Reyes National Seashore spokesman John Dell’Osso said.