Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, November 30, 1993                   TAG: 9311300376
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PHOENIX                                LENGTH: Medium

7 DEADLY FALLS HAVE GRAND CANYON RANGERS WATCHING VISITORS' STEPS

Donna Spangler, 59, fell more than 100 feet to her death, becoming the first of seven people killed this year in accidental falls into the canyon. Two died this month.

Park officials said they can't remember a worse year.

It was a sunny Easter Sunday morning at the Grand Canyon, and Robert and Donna Spangler were climbing out after camping overnight on Horseshoe Mesa.

"She was not a very strong hiker," Spangler, 60, said from his home in Durango, Colo. "I don't know if she became unbalanced with her backpack or if she shuffled her feet or stepped on a rock that became loose. I turned around and she was gone."

From 1989 to this year, seven people died in accidental falls all told. Statistics before then are incomplete.

Park managers call the spate of deaths a coincidence. They have no plans to add railings or increase the already numerous warnings in signs and brochures that caution against peering over the edge of the mile-deep chasm, said park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge.

The warnings often are depicted in the international symbol of a stick figure falling backward.

Park workers, environmentalists and regular visitors like Spangler say there's no way to make the 277-mile long park fall-proof.

Tom Jensen, executive director of Grand Canyon Trust, an environmental group, said the park's more than 4 million annual visitors need to use common sense to avoid accidents.

"A lot of tourists approach the Grand Canyon like a ride at Disneyland or some other amusement park and think it's idiot-proof," Jensen said. "The Grand Canyon wasn't built by attorneys and engineers."

Two of the people who died this year had climbed over guard rails. One was a drifter collecting coins from a ledge where tourists toss pennies. The other was a young man jumping between rock outcroppings.

"The one common thread from these incidents has been the complete lack of regard for personal safety," said Ken Miller, the park's chief ranger.

\ FATAL FALLS\ AT GRAND CANYON IN 1993\ \ Donna Spangler 59, of Durango, Colo., fell on April 11 getting ready to pose for a photograph on a trail below Grandview Point on the South Rim.\ \ Lawrence Jackson 24, of Mesa, Ariz., fell Aug. 14 on or near a trail at the mouth of Badger Creek near Marble Canyon. Park officials said he had been drinking.\ \ Andraes Zimmerman 24, of Germany, slipped and fell Sept. 5 from an overlook near Cape Royal at the North Rim.\ \ Lori Newcomb 35, of Houston, lost her balance and fell Sept. 7 from an overlook near Cape Royal at the North Rim.\ \ James Merriman 51, a drifter, fell Sept. 8 trying to pick up coins tourists toss onto a ledge below Mather Point on the South Rim.\ \ Timothy J. Rowe 24, of Madison, Wis., fell Nov. 9 jumping between rocks near Trail View overlook on the South Rim.\ \ James Hyland 22, of Sparta, N.J., fell Nov. 15 behind Bright Angel Lodge on the South Rim. Evidence indicated he had been walking along the top of a low wall at night and slipped.