College student falls to her death while taking pictures on Oregon coast
Manzanita, Ore. — A 21-year-old Oregon State University student died after plummeting from a popular viewpoint along the Oregon coast. CBS Portland affiliate KOIN-TV reports that Michelle Casey, of Happy Valley, was taking pictures at Neahkahnie Mountain near Manzanita when she fell on Sunday.
A tree caught Casey and kept her from falling into the ocean below, but it took rescuers two hours to reach her. The station says when rescuers reached Casey, she was unconscious but still breathing.
She was pronounced dead later at a hospital. Casey, who graduated from Clackamas High School, was studying kinesiology at Oregon State.
On her Facebook page, Casey described herself as "a bubbly, friendly and dorky person who loves to make people smile." Casey's family told KOIN-TV that she "loved singing in choir and her Starbucks customers as a barista in both Portland and Corvallis."
They said she was "an organ donor, a decision that saved two lives." The family thanked the emergency responders who rushed to help her, the doctors at Legacy Emanuel and the transplant team at Pacific Northwest Transplant Bank.