UMaine mourns student who died while hiking | News

ACADIA NATIONAL PARK, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Members of the University of Maine community are mourning the loss of student Shirley Ladd of Barnstead, New Hampshire. She died after a fall at Acadia National Park.

Ladd was hiking the Precipice trail on Champlain Mountain with a friend. She was somewhere near the top of the trail when she fell about 60 feet.

Park rangers responded to the scene and called in about 30 people to help, including members of the Bar Harbor Fire Department as well as Mount Desert Island Search and Rescue.

Ladd was taken by Life Flight to Eastern Maine Medical Center  where she died Saturday evening.

She is remembered as a hard working senior at U. Maine. The 22-year-old worked for campus recreation for a number of years. Her directors say she always did her job with passion.

"She had a wide effect on all of us...so it {the tragedy} came as a real shock," said Jeff Hunt, who is the university's director of campus recreation, "and we're all very sad about his and trying to support each other and trying to work through it."

Park rangers at Acadia are still trying to figure out what caused Ladd to fall. Anybody who was on the Precipice Trail last Saturday and might have witnessed the fall is asked to contact park headquarters at (207)-288-8791.