Man falls from cliff while reportedly evading authorities; boat fire could connect him to crimes
Firefighters are revealing new details about the rescue of a man who fell over 40 feet off of cliff while reportedly running from law enforcement in Clark County on Sunday morning.
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As News Center 7 previously reported, the incident happened at the Mad River Gorge and Nature Preserve.
Sunday morning, in the dark, deputies were joined by Springfield Police and Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP) troopers while looking, unsuccessfully, for a man who ran from a deputy trying to pull him over.
Brennen Kumbusky said he found the victim hours later, around 7:30 a.m.
'Ended up hearing this guy yelling, 'Help!' And I was like,' Do you need medical?'' Kumbusky said.
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The man he found lying at the bottom of a cliff didn't want him to call 911 despite having injuries all over his body, including a compound fracture in his leg.
'So he was there for a couple hours, and I don't know if it was just adrenaline that was keeping him going, but a compound fracture,' he described.
Kumbusky told News Center 7 that he later learned about everything else that happened.
Sheriff's deputies said a vehicle that drove away from one of their deputies was spotted near the park. They asked for help searching, and an OSHP aviation unit spotted a man running down railroad tracks.
That same unit then called firefighters after spotting a fire in the woods. They found an abandoned boat that had been set on fire. Its burned-out remains were spotted by News Center 7 on Tuesday.
'Our crews chose to stay away and not enter the area because of the risk of whoever the suspect was, whatever their reason for being there was,' Springfield Fire Chief Jacob King said.
As shown on News Center 7 at 5:00, King said the aviation unit called the area safe and clear of people about an hour later. Then, firefighters headed back there carrying extinguishers to douse the flames.
'But none of our apparatus will fit down there,' King explained. 'It's a significantly long distance to walk as well.'
Everyone agrees on one thing: the man is lucky to survive.
'When I came up on him, he was freezing,' Kumbusky said.
Sheriff's Office investigators that News Center 7 spoke with on Tuesday admitted that now, even 48 hours after the incident, they can't say for sure that the injured man in the hospital is the same person who drove away from the deputy.
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