Dive from 21 in 1983 While Aggravated As- the Safest Place in the State Was Saults More Than Doubled from 28 the Waterloo (Pop
Wisconsin Wednesday July 31,1985 Madison, Wisconsin State Journal *** 35 cents Mountaintop lures hikers to a grisly end By E.A. Torriero Besides Frith, 24, of Mountain View, Calif., another Illuminated by moonlight, the survivors were ©Knight-Ridder News Service hiker, Brian Jordon, 16, of Hayward, Calif., was killed plucked from Half Dome in a daring and dangerous when lightning struck the top of Half Dome early midnight helicopter rescue nearly six hours after YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. - Robert Saturday evening. lightning danced across the football-field-size peak. Frith was rolling toward his death. Two other hikers — Thomas Rice, 28, of Los Gatos, Rangers say the men, part of a nine-member hik- Like four of his hiking friends, Frith had been Calif., and Bruce Weiner, 24, of Mountain View — were ing party, played a risky game. jolted by lightning atop Yosemite's Half Dome. listed Monday in serious but stable condition at the Ignoring three signs warning them to turn back if He was convulsing, spitting up food, hysterically University of California at Davis Medical Center in electrical storms were in the area, the men continued chanting meaningless words and thrashing about only Sacramento. their trek to the crest of granite that was once thought inches from the edge of the 8,842-foot monolith. Doctors said the men's legs were burned so se- inaccessible to humans. A hand, that of a burned and pain-stricken friend, verely that the muscles bloated. Surgeons operated They literally walked into a charcoal thunderhead reached out. For a few seconds, Frith held on.
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