On Saturday July 2, 2011 a rock climber died at Rumbling Bald near Lake Lure in Western North Carolina. Joshua Earl Haddock, 29, fell thirty to forty feet in an accident while rappelling. A Western Carolina University graduate, Haddock was working on a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Cincinnati at the time of the accident.
Rutherford Sheriff’s Detective Billy Scoggins said “Haddock was rappelling down a cliff when his rope came loose from a climbing pin.” One end of his rope was not touching the ground when he rappelled the route and the uneven end pulled through the anchor causing the fall.
At ten in morning Saturday nearby climbers and friends heard Haddock fall and rushed to help, finding him without any signs of life. While awaiting emergency services fellow climbers were able to preform CPR and get Haddock breathing again; however, doctors found that Joshua had a broken neck and were unable to fully revive him.
Joshua Haddock was a nature lover who took up rock climbing while at school at WCU. After graduating he moved west to Fort Collins, Colorado where he received his masters degree. He had planned on returning to Fort Collins after his dissertation in Cincinnati. According to his mother, Joshua was a careful climber well aware of the risks of climbing; “he very much accepted the fact that life itself is a risk, and he just decided he was going to do those things that he wanted to do.”
Doctors were able to save Haddock’s heart, lungs, liver, pancreas and kidneys for five different donors. Upon hearing that four men and one woman had received Joshua’s organs, his mother, Pamela Haddock, found some comfort in that her son’s death was able to give life to five others.