Buffalo National River (AR)
Park Staff Join In Recovery Of Hiker’s Body
Last weekend, members of BUFFSAR, the park’s search and rescue team, assisted the Newton County Sheriff’s Office and Ozark National Forest with the search for and recovery of the body of a man who’d fallen from a cliff in a forest area adjacent to the park. David Hadlock, 54, of Springdale, Arkansas, fell from a high cliff in the Magnolia Falls area of the forest’s portion of the Upper Buffalo Wilderness, part of which is managed by the NPS. Hadlock had left his home sometime on Saturday morning, advising his family that he was going to be hiking and taking photographs in the area and would return by 6 p.m. His wife called at 8 p.m. and reported him overdue, advising that he might be in the Boxley Valley area of the park’s Upper Buffalo District and also providing coordinates of where he was going that day. Ranger Melissa Lamm checked all Boxley Valley trailheads, but was unable to locate Hadlock’s vehicle. At the Forest Service’s request, Lamm followed the coordinates to a USFS trailhead just outside the park and located the vehicle, which had had its back window broken out. Lamm notified the USFS and the sheriff’s office, both of which asked that she remain on scene with the vehicle until they could send their own personnel. Lamm, a USFS LEO, and a county deputy conducted a hasty search of the area until 1 a.m., but were unable to locate Hadlock and decided that the terrain was too dangerous to continue searching at night. Additional searchers, including five NPS rangers and one BUFFSAR volunteer, joined the search the following morning and searched a rugged, narrow canyon punctuated by three high waterfalls, whose vertical walls were shrouded in curtains of ice. Around mid-morning, searchers found Hadlock’s body face-down in a creek pool at the base of a 70-foot cliff and confirmed that he’d died in the fall. Personnel recovered the body by conducting a grueling carryout operation that involved moving the litter up steep, boulder-strewn slopes while crawling on their hands and knees, two short evolutions of rope-assisted litter raises, and, finally, a wheeled-litter carryout through a heavily vegetated, overgrown trail – all while being subjected to a drenching rain for the entirety of the operation. This incident provided an opportunity for BUFFSAR to work side by side with members of neighboring SAR organizations, including the sheriff’s office, the USFS, and Krooked Kreek Volunteer Fire Department, forging strong relationships with them. Throughout this extremely difficult incident, all members conducted themselves in a highly professional manner under very emotional circumstances. The sheriff’s office is investigating. [Submitted by Kevin Moses, Acting Chief Ranger]
