TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A 45-year-old man surnamed Lin (林) was found dead on Wednesday (Feb. 22) after he fell down a steep side slope from a trail in central Taiwan on Monday while leading a mountaineering team on a four-day hike along the Nenggao Cross Ridge Trail across the Central Mountain Range.
Lin was the leader of a four-member mountaineering team, CNA reported. They set off from the Tuenyuen trailhead (屯原登山口) in Ren'ai Township, Nantou County on Sunday and planned to reach Xiulin Township, Hualien County after three or four days of hiking, CNA reported.
On Monday morning, they left Tianchi Lodge, and Lin was walking ahead of the team. When the three people behind Lin found no trace of someone walking in front of them on the trail and heard the sound of earth and rocks sliding, they suspected that something might have happened to their leader.
The three were searching for Lin back and forth along the trail when they found broken branches and displaced stones near the Wujia wall. Looking down the slope, they found Lin's hiking poles, per CNA.
The fellow hikers went down the slope to find Lin laying face down on the ground with no vital signs. They immediately reported to the Hualien County Fire Department for help.
A 9-member search and rescue team started out from Xiulin Township at around 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, and they reached the patient on Wednesday morning.
The county fire department said that according to reports from the search and rescue personnel, Lin fell down a slope to a spot about 130 to 150 meters deep from the trail and was obviously dead. The team was carrying Lin’s remains to an open area in order to be airlifted out of the mountain by the National Airborne Service Corps at a later time.
The victim was the son of Lin Feng-hsi (林豐喜), a former legislator of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and his family arrived in Hualien to take care of the aftermath of the accident.
(Hualien County Fire Department photo)
