KODIAK, Alaska – Emergency responders in Kodiak say they had to overcome the challenges of a cliff as well as an incoming tide to rescue a woman who fell 60 feet onto rocks.
Maria Pestrikoff survived the fall Sept. 17 and is recovering in an Anchorage hospital.
The Kodiak Daily Mirror reports she slipped as she was texting on her phone at the same time she tried to toss a cigarette butt over the cliff edge.
Her friend Anthony Burke heard her screams from the rocks below and called emergency responders.
Firefighters from the Bayside and Kodiak fire departments rushed to the accident scene.
Pestrikoff was just 10 feet from the incoming tide. She was placed in a rolled stretcher and hauled up the cliff to an ambulance.
Anthony Burke, a friend, wrote in the newspaper, "Lesson learned -- don't leave the gate open, don't text message and smoke cigarettes on a slippery bluff with a long drop to the rocks."
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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