Brookings teen survives 75-foot cliff plunge

Travis Dillon

When rescuers found him, the young man was suffering from five broken ribs, a broken shoulder blade and a collapsed lung. Doctors would later find that he had suffered 11 fractures along his spine.

Travis was climbing with friends on the hillside above Macklyn Cove, north of Chetco Point, on Saturday evening when he fell 75 to 100 feet to the rocky beach below, according to Brookings Police Sgt. Terry Murray.

Travis and his hiking partners had separated prior to the fall and the others did not know Travis had fallen, Murray said.

Brookings Police Dispatch received a 911 cell phone call from Travis at 9:10 p.m.

“He was obviously injured and we had a hard time understanding exactly where he was,” Murray said.

Authorities originally thought Travis had fallen from a cliff off Oceanview Drive in Harbor and so the 911 call was routed to Sheriff’s dispatch center in Gold Beach and an ambulance crew headed that way. Once the exact location was pinpointed, dispatchers from both agencies worked together to direct rescuers to Travis’ location, Murray said.

Brookings police officers, firefighters and a Cal/Ore Lifeflight ambulance were sent to the scene. They found Dillon unable to move from a rock near the water’s edge, with the rising tide getting closer, Murray said. They placed Dillon in a rescue basket and carried him to the ambulance waiting on Mill Beach Road.

According to Keffe, Travis had decided to scale the side of the rocky hillside while his friends went up and around.

“He slipped and began sliding feet first. After that he doesn’t remember what happened,” Keffe said.

Travis may have hit several rocks on the way down, but he’s not sure.

“He landed on the sand among the rocks. He decided to pull himself up onto a nearby rock when he saw the tide coming in,” Keffe said.

On Tuesday, Travis was recovering from his injuries; however, the doctors were waiting to see if he was going to need spinal surgery for any of the 11 small, vertebra fractures.

“We really won’t know if he will need surgery until he is strong enough to stand up and support himself so they can take X-rays,” Keffe said. “If he can stand up and put pressure on his spine then they won’t have to do surgery, but he’ll have to wear a back brace.”

This is not the first time Travis has been seriously injured. He was taken to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in 2003, at age 9, after he was injured in a car accident that took his mother’s life. The car had veered off the road and into a tree. The impact of the crash forced Travis’ lap belt through his abdominal cavity, splitting it open to his back.

Then, surgeons at Doernbecher performed surgery to repair the boy’s colon, intestine and abdominal wall.