Mother dead, 5-year-old son critical after fall into Niagara Gorge

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A woman is dead and her five-year-old son is in critical condition after they fell 27 metres (90 feet) into the Niagara Gorge in New York state.

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Authorities are looking into the circumstances around Monday’s fall as “we don’t believe it was an accident,” Capt. Chris Rola of the New York State Park Police (NYSPP) said.

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As well as interviewing witnesses, police were talking to the woman’s husband, who was reportedly at the scene.

Rola said both the Niagara Falls Fire Department and NYSPP responded to reports around 12:30 p.m. that a woman and a child had climbed over the railing and fallen in the Cave of the Winds area of Niagara Falls.

Rescuers took the Cave of the Winds elevator to reach the duo and delivered life-saving measures on the pair. The boy was stable enough to be brought up the same way and taken to hospital by air ambulance.

Rola said the woman’s body was recovered by the New York State Police Aviation Unit via helicopter and sent to the Niagara County coroner.

“It’s very icy down there,” Rola noted. “So it’s real tough terrain that our guys and our girls were able to get through and get to them and provide that life-saving care and do everything they could.”

The boy had surgery for a head injury and remains in critical condition at Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo.

While the identities of the mother and son haven’t been released police say the family aren’t from the “immediate area.”