UA student, 19, dies; fell 100 feet from bluff

Rogers teen hiking at Hawksbill Crag

Map showing Hawksbill Crag Accident location.
Map showing Hawksbill Crag Accident location.

A student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville died Sunday after she fell off a bluff near Hawksbill Crag in Newton County.

Jessamy Samuels, 19, of Rogers, was pronounced dead at the scene after the 100-foot fall, according to the Newton County sheriff's office.

The fall occurred near one of the most popular sites in the Ozark Mountains. Named because it resembles a hawk's bill, the rocky outcrop is also known as Whitaker Point. It is 46 miles north of Clarksville.

Glenn Wheeler, search-and-rescue coordinator with the sheriff's office, said the fall was "purely accidental." He said Samuels was hiking with a friend. She was about 50 feet east of Hawksbill Crag when she hopped off a boulder, lost her footing and fell off the bluff, Wheeler said.

Search-and-rescue teams were involved in a multihour, high-angle recovery after receiving the call at 11:23 a.m., Wheeler said. Samuels' body was taken to a funeral home in Harrison.

Samuels was a freshman anthropology major in the university's Honors College. She was enrolled in a three-semester Honors Humanities Program taught last semester by the college dean, Lynda Coon.

"She was always there, always engaged, super intellectually curious and very well-liked by her colleagues," Coon said. "She was headed to brilliant things. It is devastating."

Originally from London, Samuels was a fan of Wes Anderson films, according to her posts on social media.

Samuels moved from the United Kingdom to Rogers in the first grade, according to an article in The Arkansas Traveler, the UA student newspaper. Samuels was a staff reporter for the paper from May to August 2015, according to an article. She hiked the trail to Hawksbill Crag with other students in March during spring break, according to the Traveler.

Newton County Sheriff Keith Slape urged visitors to be cautious around bluffs and rivers.

Mike Mills, owner of the Buffalo Outdoor Center at Ponca, said the trail to Hawksbill Crag is crowded this time of year. He estimated 2,500 to 4,000 people have hiked the trail over the past 10 weekends.

It was the third fatal fall on the trail to Hawksbill Crag since 2010. That year, Dylan Meier, 26, of Pittsburg, Kan., fell to his death near Hawksbill Crag after climbing onto a 10-foot-tall boulder to get a better view of the valley below. In 2012, Austin Elders, 19, of Fort Smith fell off Hawksbill Crag during a camping trip and later died of his injuries.

Metro on 05/17/2016

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