Kansas City teenager falls 60 feet to her death at Missouri state park
CBSN
A Kansas City teen has died after she fell 60 feet from a bluff at a popular state park in southeast Missouri Saturday. CBS affiliate KMOV-TV reports that 18-year-old Mariah Schramm died of an apparent head injury Saturday afternoon after slipping atop the rocky bluffs at at Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park and falling into the Black River.
People frequently ignore trespassing signs at the spot to gain access to the bluffs and jump into the river, said Col. Tom Dresner, chief ranger with the Missouri State Parks. He added that the park writes tickets for trespassing, although no park rangers were policing that area when Schramm died. Witnesses told park rangers that Schramm "seemed to indicate she was hesitant" to jump. About 3 p.m. Saturday, "she ended up losing her footing and slipping and hitting the rocks on the way down," Dresner said.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.
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