Ore. Mom Dies After Jumping to Rescue Son, 3, Who Fell Down Embankment

A Portland, Ore., mother of four died over the weekend after jumping to rescue her 3-year-old son, who had fallen down an embankment at Horsetail Falls Trail in Corbett, Ore., KOIN reports. 

Stephanie Cohen, 37, was on a Saturday-afternoon hike in the Columbia River Gorge with friends and family when her son fell. She jumped to rescue the child but sustained fatal injuries. According to the report, both Cohen and the boy fell about 60 feet before falling another 2 to 30 feet on a steep slope. 

Paramedics tried to save Cohen, but she died on the trailhead. The child was injured in the incident but survived the fall and is expected to be OK. 

“I believe she did save him,” Cohen’s best friend, Danielle Dalbok, who was with her, said, according to KOIN. “What makes it interesting is that she didn’t pass until she knew he was OK, and that kind of, for me, says it all. She needed to see he was OK, and she sat up and saw him and laid back down and passed shortly thereafter.”

Dalbok and her 13-year-old son, along with Cohen’s other children—including the 3-year-old’s twin—and Cohen’s longtime partner, Jayson Lewis, were all there at the time of the tragedy. 

Lewis scrambled to reach Cohen and held her as she said “her son’s name over and over and over again. And she was able to just rest when she saw him and he was OK,” Dalbok recounted for the news station. 

Read more at KOIN.