A 63-year-old Iowa woman is at least the sixth person to die after incidents in Ohio parks since 2018.
Nancy Baker, of Davenport, Iowa, died on May 20 after she fell about 80 feet off of a cliff near State Route 374 in Hocking County.
Baker had been hiking the semi-remote, one-way hiking loop at Cantwell Cliffs trail with her husband when she tripped and slid down an embankment before falling over the cliff. The area where Baker was hiking was a steep descent.
Baker’s death comes about 11 months after a Michigan woman died when she was struck by a falling tree in Conkles Hollow State Nature Preserve.
Shelley Vandyke, 69, from Ada, Michigan, died on July 1, 2025, when a mature, uprooted tree fell and struk her while she and friends were hiking the Lower Rim trail.
Other deaths in Ohio parks in recent years include:
In 2019, Victoria Schafer, 44, a photographer from Chillicothe, died after she was struck by a 74-pound log that was either pushed or thrown off of a hill above her while she was on the steps of Old Man’s Cave. Two teeangers were convicted of involuntary manslaughter in her death.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has previously shared safety tips for hikers and visitors to parks. Those tips include:
Reporter Bethany Bruner can be reached at bbruner@dispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Iowa woman’s death latest fatal mishap at Ohio parks
Reporting by Bethany Bruner, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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