Living to tell the tale: Woman speaks out after falling off Cape Breton cliff
The beauty of Cape Breton's coastline attracts many to the cliffs for a closer look, but that can be dangerous.
Swivel Point in Sydney Mines is no exception.
“I went to take a picture of the nice view, and it was too late – and I was gone,” says 24-year-old Taylin Kavanaugh. “It's just not worth the picture.”
It was about a year ago when Kavanaugh says she fell 60 feet – about the height of two telephone poles – to the shoreline below after the ground beneath her crumbled.
She says she wasn’t even daringly close to the edge of the cliff when it happened, but about three or four meters away.
“It was definitely a horrible experience,” said Kavanaugh. “I couldn't move lying on the beach. I didn't know if I was going to die. I didn't know what was going to happen.”
Kavanaugh is speaking out after seeing someone post a picture of erosion in Point Aconi to social media.
Today, still recovering almost a year later, she walks with a cane.
“I shattered my pelvis on the right side, I broke a couple vertebrae in my lower back, and I broke my arm and my elbow, so I was in a wheelchair for almost two months after the accident,” she says.
CBRM Councillor Gordon MacDonald says there's not much that can be done to protect people from getting too close to the cliff's edge.
“You can go all around the island and there are big cliffs everywhere,” says MacDonald. “You absolutely have to use caution and you can't put signs up everywhere.”
It's not the first time someone had to be rescued after going over the side of a Cape Breton cliff - and MacDonald fears it won't be the last.
“There is all of kinds of erosion going on around here and people have to be cautious when you get out to those cliffs that are 25 to 65 feet high,” says MacDonald. “You should use extreme caution.”
Kavanaugh says the ground along the coast can be deceiving.
“You can't see what's underneath, and how far the erosion really goes back,” says Kavanaugh. “And, what looks like solid ground sometimes isn't. It happens really quickly.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Deadly six-vehicle crash on Highway 400 sparked by road rage incident
One person was killed in a six-vehicle crash on Highway 400 in Innisfil Friday evening.
Last letters of pioneering climber who died on Everest reveal dark side of mountaineering
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
Cisco reveals security breach, warns of state-sponsored spy campaign
State-sponsored actors targeted security devices used by governments around the world, according to technology firm Cisco Systems, which said the network devices are coveted intrusion points by spies.
Yemen's Houthi rebels claim downing U.S. Reaper drone, release footage showing wreckage of aircraft
Yemen's Houthi rebels on Saturday claimed shooting down another of the U.S. military's MQ-9 Reaper drones, airing footage of parts that corresponded to known pieces of the unmanned aircraft.
An emergency slide falls off a Delta Air Lines plane, forcing pilots to return to JFK in New York
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
Opinion I just don't get Taylor Swift
It's one thing to say you like Taylor Swift and her music, but don't blame CNN's AJ Willingham's when she says she just 'doesn't get' the global phenomenon.
Britney Spears settles long-running legal dispute with estranged father, finally bringing ultimate end to conservatorship
Britney Spears has reached a settlement with her estranged father more than two years after the court-ordered termination of a conservatorship that had given him control of her life, their attorneys said.
First court appearance for boy and girl charged in death of Halifax 16-year-old
A girl and a boy, both 14 years old, made their first appearance today in a Halifax courtroom, where they each face a second-degree murder charge in the stabbing death of a 16-year-old high school student.
Haida elder suing Catholic Church and priest, hopes for 'healing and reconciliation'
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.