Pregnant Woman Miraculously Survives Fall at Niagara Falls

By COLlive reporter

A Chabad woman from Crown Heights who was hiking in the Niagara Falls gorge on the Canadian-American border this week fell off a 50-foot cliff and miraculously survived with non-life-threatening injuries.

In a voice note, the woman emotionally told of the sudden fall and that a rabbi instructed her to publicize the great miracle which occurred.

She went on the hike as a summer trip with her husband, children and various members of her extended family.

“I was walking side by side with my daughter, who is almost eight and we were just talking,” said the woman, who is pregnant. “It wasn’t an easy hike, but the path was not narrow.”

Suddenly, she says, she tripped and went over the edge of the cliff, face down. “I started sliding on my belly headfirst towards the cliff,” she said. “I hear my daughter screaming, ‘No, no mommy!'”

The woman said se tried to grab onto trees or roots on the side of the path, but wasn’t successful and continued on a free fall.

“All I knew next was I was floating,” she described. “I could only describe it as floating. I was floating down this cliff, free falling. And I can only maybe describe it that Hashem is holding me because it doesn’t make sense. I wasn’t going so fast. I was floating down and then it was all boulders. There were no trees, and I hit the bottom.”

She described getting her bearings, and realizing with disbelief that she was alive and conscious.

“As I was sitting there, I was thinking of all the good things in the world – my healthy children, my healthy husband,” she said. “[I was thinking] ‘thank you Hashem, for making me fall and not my kids’.”

Three experienced hikers carefully went down the dangerous mountainside to sit with the woman until emergency services arrived. The fire department then rescued her by emergency personnel who had to use ropes to scale down the side of the cliff to rescue her.

When she arrived at the hospital, doctors and nurses were in shock at her condition, she said. She is suffering from a fractured spine and some scraches but is also able to get up and walk around.

What is more, she said the doctors checked her baby’s condition. “Baruch Hashem, the baby is safe as well,” she said.

“When I was sitting there in the hospital at night, and I heard some people crying out in pain, I thought, maybe that’s my shlichus. Maybe I’m supposed to daven for them,” she said. “So I said some Tehillim for them.”

“I have to say, my body – both scratches – are almost healed, and my wounds are almost closed. Yes, I still have to see a neurosurgeon for my back. But, Baruch Hashem, I’m so so so blessed.”

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