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July 18, 2007

Update: Cranston girl who fell in N.H. is home safe

A Cranston girl who fell while rock climbing in New Hampshire yesterday is home safe with a few bumps and bruises, according to her mother and grandfather.

Hannah Meharg, 12, fell more than 40 feet from a cliff in the White Mountains yesterday while participating in a weeklong rock-climbing camp operated by the Rhode Island Rock Gym of Lincoln.

Meharg, an avid rock climber who attends the Jewish Community Day School in Providence, had reached the top of a cliff at Rumney Rocks and fell while preparing to descend, landing partially on another child, according to Lt. Todd Bogardus of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. The other child was not seriously injured.

Rescuers believe Meharg, one of 10 children on the expedition, fell after mistakenly unclipping herself from her safety gear.

Crews passed her stretcher over steep boulders through rugged terrain to get her to the hospital. John Meharg, Hannah’s grandfather, said X-rays revealed no fractures. But he said she has scrapes and bruises on her head, face and legs and some pain in her back.

Hannah’s mother Ronni Meharg, who drove to New Hampshire last night to pick up her daughter, said she did not blame the camp operators for Hannah’s fall, calling it a “total, total fluke accident.”

She said her daughter loves rock climbing and does not plan to give it up. Hannah’s grandfather did not seem so sure about the wisdom of that decision, but was unwilling to intervene.

“I’m her grandfather,” he said, with a chuckle. “I don’t think I get to have an opinion.”

-- Journal staff writer David Scharfenberg, with reports from The Associated Press

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 6:45 PM | Permalink

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