September 11, 2011
By Ilima Loomis, MauiNews.com
A Molokai teen said he feels lucky to be alive after falling 40
to 50 feet down a cliff in a hunting accident Sept. 3.
Seventeen-year-old Kaimana He of Kaunakakai said he lost
consciousness after hitting his head in the fall, landing on a ledge
that stood above a 250-foot sheer drop. As it was, he was able to
climb a steep trail to safety, and survived the ordeal with just a
"big gash to my head, two black eyes, broke nose and a bruised-up
body."
Kaimana said he had been pig hunting with two friends in Waialeia
Valley in the Molokai Forest Reserve, a high, steep area of open
grass flats and swampland. Weather conditions were poor, "foggy, and
pumping rain," he said.
The Molokai High School senior, who also goes by the nickname "Mana,"
said he heard some of his dogs barking at a goat, and had climbed
down to get them. But when he tried to climb back up, he slipped.
"I was trying to grab onto something to pull myself up, and it
was all grass and mud, and because it was raining, it was loose," he
said. "The grass pulled out, and I started sliding and went down the
hill, and I went over the side."
At that point he was "free-falling, and hitting rocks on the way
down," he said.
For a few moments, Kaimana was thinking about "all my life,
everything," he said. "I thought that was it." Then he hit his head
on a rock, and blacked out.
