A Fort Smith man was believed to be in critical condition Saturday after falling 100 feet from near Hawksbill Crag in Newton County, according to the sheriff’s office.

The 18- or 19-year-old University of Arkansas-Fort Smith student, who was not identified Saturday pending notification of his family, had been camping with a friend, who also was not identified.

The pair was walking to the bluff’s edge between 2:30 and 3 a.m. Saturday to watch the stars, dispatcher Stephen Spencer said. The friend said he stopped for a moment and then heard what sounded like someone falling off the edge.

Someone called the sheriff ’s office about 3:50 a.m. asking if the dispatcher knew where Hawksbill Crag was and then disconnected, Spencer said. At 5 a.m., the sheriff’s office received another call from a man saying that his friend had fallen from near the crag.

The caller had been having trouble finding a spot with cell-phone service in the remote Newton County area of the Upper Buffalo WildernessArea to call for help, Spencer said.

Several agencies responded to the emergency, Spencer said, including the Buffalo River High Angle Rescue Service, Newton County Search and Rescue, the U.S. Forest Service, the Newton County sheriff’s office and the Mount Sherman Volunteer Fire Department.

Some rescuers rappelled down the bluff, while others took a circuitous route on foot to the site where the man fell. Spencer said that according to Sheriff Keith Slape, the man hit several tree branches on his way down, which helped break his fall. Rescuers found the man alive but unresponsive.

The injured man was loaded into a rescue basket and lifted to the top of the bluff, where he was taken by ambulance to North Arkansas Regional Medical Center in Harrison about 11 a.m., Spencer said.

Spencer said Slape believed the man was the first in his memory to have survived a fall from around Hawksbill Crag. Spencer estimated that two people a year fall from the bluff.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 18 on 12/09/2012