A high-school student plunged to his death during a hiking trip with his family on Wednesday.
Wu Chien-ming (吳健銘), a second-year student at National Taichung First Senior High School had been walking the Beikeng Creek (北坑溪) hiking trail in Greater Taichung’s Wufong District (霧峰) with his parents and younger brother and sister.
Wu and his father, Wu Chi-yuan (吳啟源), had climbed to the the top of Jiu Jiu Peak (九 九峰) at about 11am and Wu Chien-ming said that he wanted to take a picture of his father.
Photo: CNA
Wu Chi-yuan said he turned around for a moment to grab a drink and when he turned around again his son had vanished.
An hour passed before Wu Chi-yuan was able to reach a low enough altitude to get a signal on his cellphone and call the fire service for help.
Although three rescue teams were mobilized it was three hours before a team arrived.
After failing to find Wu Chien-ming the rescue team recommenced search and rescue operations at 8am yesterday.
They finally found his body at an altitude of 190m about two hours later on a cliff about 60m below the ridgeline from where he fell.
The fire department said that because Wu Chien-ming was found in a spot that was difficult to access, it took a long time to extract his body.
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