Woman who fell from Cliff Walk ID'd as from Indiana
12:11 PM Mon, Sep 15, 2008 | Permalink
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NEWPORT -- The seriously injured woman rescued Thursday from rocky shore about 50 feet below the Cliff Walk has been identified as Judith Corrigan, 46, of Terre Haute, Indiana, the police said today. At about 7:15 p.m. Thursday, someone on the seaside path that runs along some of the city's fabled mansions called for help after spotting the woman in the water below the walk behind Ochre Court estate, which lies just south of the 40 Steps on Narragansett Avenue and is now part of Salve Regina University. Two officers descended the steep cliff and pulled her from the water. Firefighters then lifted her from the rocks. The woman was taken to Newport Hospital before being moved to Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, police Lt. William Fitzgerald said last week. Today, Fitzgerald said that Corrigan has been reported to be in a coma. Yesterday, Newport police were contacted by Middletown police, who received information about the missing woman, according to a police news release today. Family members contacted the Newport police and the woman was identified. The police last week were not certain how the woman ended up in the water. The news release today did not provide additional information about that. It said the severe injuries were consistent with falling and landing on rock. "We're not going to release any particular information, but it's not suspicious," said Fitzgerald. He said that the family knew Corrigan had been staying in Middletown and saw media reports about the unidentified woman found at the bottom of Cliff Walk with critical injuries. That prompted someone in the family to contact police in Rhode Isald. While the police have identified the victim, the hospital is still not releasing her condition, according to spokeswoman Nancy Cawley. That's because the hospital is still awaiting formal identification of the victim, such as a visit by next of kin. Federal regulations, Cawley said, prohibit releasing medical information about a patient that has not been identified. The 3.5-mile scenic walk, some of it rocky and narrow, has been the site of serious mishaps before. -- With reports from Journal staff writer Rich Salit In 2000, Simcha Berman, then 23, of Brooklyn, N.Y., was paralyzed in a fall off the Cliff Walk. In 2003, he filed a $6-million claim with the city of Newport. In 1999, two people dove from Cliff Walk into water below and one of the young men, Michael Gray, of Newport, was injured when he struck a submerged rock. In August 1991, Bryant College (now Bryant University) student Michael Cain, 21, was killed when he accidentally fell from the Cliff Walk. He had lived in Barrington for several years. 
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It's time for Newport to smarten up and either fence the entire walk for safety reasons or close it and tear it down. How many people have to die before they learn just how dangerous that walk is?
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The path is just fine as long as you stay on it. Putting up a fence isn't going to prevent people from jumping over the fence either.
I've been to a lot of national parks and even at the Grand Canyon, there is no fence railing to prevent people from falling into the canyon. If you stay on the path and use your head, then you won't get in trouble.
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you can't prevent people from committing suicide. This woman climbed the fence and JUMPED. Therefore, fencing won't do anything when someone has it in their head they want to die.
This incident has nothing to do with the cliff walk being dangerous.
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