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Man Crawls to Safety 4 Days After Falling From Cliff

He spent the days in between in a ravine
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 23, 2017 6:56 PM CDT
Guy Falls From Cliff, Crawls to Safety on Golf Course 4 Days Later
Stock photo.   (Getty Images / Deklofenak)

Ohio police say a man who fell down a cliff and spent four days in a ravine was rescued after he crawled onto a nearby golf course, despite having broken his legs, pelvis, and wrist, the AP reports. A worker at the course in Elyria, Ohio, was doing routine maintenance when he stumbled upon 30-year-old Gerald Muskiewicz and called for help, says Elyria Police Capt. Chris Costantino. Muskiewicz was naked and suffering from hypothermia when he was found. Muskiewicz told officers he had stripped his clothes off after falling because they had gotten soaked in a river and the weather was getting chilly. Temperatures in Elyria, about 25 miles west of Cleveland, dipped into the 50s over the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.

"He's very fortunate," Costantino says. "If it wasn't for the worker who was able to find him, the end result certainly could have been tragic." Muskiewicz told officials he had been speaking with his ex-wife while walking along a road above a cliff around 2am Friday morning, and that she had agreed to meet him near the golf course at the bottom of the cliff. He lost his footing while making his way down toward the golf course, Muskiewicz told detectives. The cliff is anywhere from 30 feet to 100 feet high, depending on where he fell, fire officials tell WJW-TV. There was no man-made path down the cliff, Costantino says. There's a strong possibility that alcohol or drugs played a factor in the fall, Costantino says, adding that police are not looking into the incident as a criminal matter at this time. (More Ohio stories.)

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