Witness recounts Ohio man’s 40-foot cliff fall near the Deschutes River in Bend

(UPDATE: Adding video, comment from witness, friend)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – Sometime after midnight on Wednesday morning, Marcus Wolf found his friend, who had just fallen 40 feet from of a cliff he was scaling near the Deschutes River in Bend.

"I had heard screaming for help," Wolf told NewsChannel 21 on Wednesday. "I had thought maybe someone was messing around, you know -- maybe just trying to get people to pay attention. And then someone had come up and said, 'Hey, someone needs help!'"

Earlier that night, Wolf, who describes himself as homeless, said he was hanging out with his friend, who he would only identify as Cody, and his girlfriend, April.

"We told him to stay the night," Wolf said. "He wanted to go hiking, and you know, I kind of feel bad that I didn't make him stay."

Cody, who Bend police identified as a 29-year old Ohio resident, fell down this cliff on the western bank of the Deschutes River, just south of The Riverhouse hotel.

A citizen called Deschutes County 911 shortly after 1 a.m. to report a man had fallen off a cliff just east of Northwest Rippling River Court, police Corporal Josh Spano said.

The location is a very steep, rocky and precarious area along the Deschutes River canyon that runs through the city, Spano said.

The caller at first heard the man yelling in pain from across the river, then rushed over to find him and directed police to the location. Spano said they found a 29-year-old man with life-threatening injuries.

Wolf said he didn't place the call to 911, but someone handed a call off to him, and he told the dispatcher how difficult Cody was to reach.

Police provided life-saving aid, including the application of a tourniquet, and stayed with him, dressing his wounds until Bend Fire & Rescue medics arrived to take over medical care.

Spano said they learned the man fell about 40 feet while trying to scale the nearly sheer rock face at night.

"When I got face to face with him," Wolf recalled. "I told him, 'You'd better be praying right now, because you're lucky to be alive.' He had smacked his face on a couple of rocks and broke his leg, and he had told me, 'I prayed on the way down.'"

Bend Fire used a variety of high-angle rescue techniques to lift the man from the canyon and take him to St. Charles Bend, the corporal said.

Police Lt. Juli McConkey said alcohol or intoxicants were not a factor in the fall, and the man won't be charged with a crime.