4-year-old boy from Germany died on Sunday after falling into a ravine while he was hiking with his parents in the Neda Gorge in southern Peloponnese.
The child suffered very serious injuries on the head and the spine and died during an ambulance flight to a hospital.
Following a long rescue operation, the boy was was transported by helicopter to hospital in Kalamata but despite doctors’ efforts the young life could not be saved.
The father was initially reported as injured and missing, however, he had jumped into the river to rescue his son. It seems that he was transported by ambulance to a hospital. His life is not in danger, media reported.
The family was hiking in the Neda Gorge and at some point the boy seems to have escaped the parents’ attention while on a dangerous path, slipped and fell into the void neat the small water fall of Neda.
An eyewitness told local media ilialive.gr that the parents were a little behind the boy, who stumbled and fell from a height of 25 meters into the river, hitting a tree during the fall. When I arrived, the child was alive but in a bad condition, his father had taken him up with someone else,” eyewitness Dimitris Antonopoulos who also shot the pictures said.
An emergency call was conducted via the international number <112> and a Search and Rescue Operation was launched with the participation of the firefighters, policemen, the mountaineering team of the 6th EMAK-rescue team and the special team “IKAROS”, while a drone of the Regional Fire Department of Western Greece was rushed to the scene.
During the flight the boy lost consciousness and had apparently passed away before arriving at the hospital.
PS I can’t help but wonder: who takes a 4-year-old child to a hike in a gorge?