Man killed in fall on Christmas Day identified
32-year-old fitness trainer and nurse from Ohio had recently been living in Los Angeles
arrived in less than an hour to pull the man from the water.
“Medical attention was provided to the visitor, but he died from his injuries,” Muñoz said, according to the AP.
Conner was born in Lima, Ohio, west of Columbus, in 1986. He received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Rhodes College in Ohio, and moved to Los Angeles in 2016, with his dog, Leo.
“Get up, move, take a trip, do what others say you can’t because at the end of the day you get one life and it’s yours alone to live,” he wrote on his Facebook page in 2016. “I remember sitting in my house in Lima basically upset with life. I was lost. I decided to make a decision for me (and Leo of course) and take off across the country and let me tell you, it was worth it.
“Now in my 2nd traveling position, I’m happier than ever. We get to go anywhere we want and see what this life has to offer. Enrich ourselves in different cultures I wasn’t able to be exposed to being from a small town In Ohio, to now communicating with people from every part of the world. Taking that step is terrifying no doubt, but when you look back in life would you rather have tried and failed, or remained unhappy and safe.
“It’s never (too) late to make your life what you wished for. So I’m (going to) say it again and again and again. Love your life or change it. So thank you to those who have been with Joshua Conner and his dog in 2014. Conner was identified as the man who fell to his death on Christmas Day in Yosemite National Park.
me and pushed me to be a better person in all aspects of life, I love you.”
A website posted by Chamberlin-Huckeriede funeral home in Lima, Ohio, noted in an obituary that “he died doing what he enjoyed, hiking in the great outdoors with his favorite canine companion, Leo.”
Friends of Conner’s said that Leo is OK and has been returned to Conner’s family. They described Conner as an adventurer who had worked as a fitness trainer and nurse in Ohio before heading west in search of a new chapter in his life.
“Josh did what he wanted to do,” said Nick Sanchez, owner of Team Stomp Fitness, a gym in Lima that
held a benefit for Conner’s family after his death. “He was free-spirited. He had a lifestyle that some people wish they had. He loved cross fit. He loved being outdoors. He loved his dog.”
Yosemite National Park remains open during the federal government shutdown. Law enforcement officials are on duty, but other staff members are not, and visitor centers, bathrooms and some roads are closed.
Although the Mist Trail was open while Conner was hiking there, parks officials last week closed it, pending the reopening of the federal government.
His death is the latest high-profile fatality at Yosemite National Park. More
than 4 million visitors come to the scenic park each year from around the world.
On June 2, two experienced rock climbers, Tim Klein, 42, of Palmdale and Jason Wells, 46, of Boulder, Colorado, died in a fall of about 1,000 feet from El Capitan, the huge granite wall on the north side of Yosemite Valley.
A month earlier, Asish Penugonda, 29, a native of India living in New York City, died after he slipped and fell from the Half Dome cables while hiking there as a thunderstorm approached. Penugonda worked as a biochemist with Siemens Healthcare, based in New Milford, New Jersey.
In September, 18-yearold Tomer Frankfurter, a resident of Jerusalem, fell more than 800 feet to his death while attempting to take a photograph of himself near Nevada Fall. He was on a two-month trip to the United States before he planned to enter military service in Israel.
And in October, a young married couple — Meenakshi Moorthy, 30, and her husband, Vishnu Viswanath, 29 — both born in India, but living and working in the Bay Area, died after falling from Taft Point, an overlook where they had set up a camera on a tripod.