A woman from Ladera Ranch who was visiting a waterfall with four teenagers died when she slipped and fell while trying to catch one of them.
It happened on Thursday in the Cleveland National Forest at Three Sisters Falls.
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department says that 48-year-old Sarah Louise Crocker was hiking with family friends when they got to the middle pool of the falls and one of the teen girls fell.
In a statement, the police said that the woman in charge of the teens tried to stop the girl from going over the edge. “Unfortunately, the woman and the girl both fell and hurt themselves badly.”
The tweet below verifies the news:
Sarah Louise Crocker of Ladera Ranch was exploring a waterfall with four teenagers when she slipped and fell to her death while attempting to rescue one of the girls. https://t.co/ttKW5LckUx
— FOX 11 Los Angeles (@FOXLA) June 13, 2023
Crocker fell into the bottom pool area, and people tried to save her, but she died at the scene.
The county medical examiner’s office did an investigation and found that Crocker died from multiple blunt-force injuries. Her death was found to have been an accident.
The teen girl was flown to a hospital for care. The sheriff’s office said she had “serious but not life-threatening injuries.”
Crocker was called a “talented and accomplished artist” on the GoFundMe page set up for her. She grew up in Laguna Beach and raised her family in Ladera Ranch. She did many things at school and in the neighborhood.
From San Diego, the Cleveland National Forest is about 45 miles away.
The U.S. Forest Service says that the hike to Three Sisters Falls is “moderate to strenuous.”
“This challenging hike, which is getting more popular, takes hikers through several ecosystems before leading them to the main attraction: three big waterfalls wedged between tall, rocky mountains,” said the Forest Service. “As a result of some recent changes, hikers will find a safer and more direct way to get to the falls. They won’t have to rock/mountain climb, which lowers the risk of injury and the number of people who get hurt.”
The Forest Service also tells people who want to hike around the falls to “be careful,” because “years of water runoff have made the large boulders very smooth, which makes it easy to slip and fall.”
