Children seriously hurt after falling from Governor Dodge State Park cliff

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - A 6-year-old and a 4-year-old were seriously injured Wednesday after Iowa Co. officials said they fell 20 and 80 feet, respectively, from a cliff.

Iowa Co. officials said they received an emergency call around 2:15 p.m. for two kids that had fallen from a cliff near Bluff Point Trail in Governor Dodge State Park.

“Incident command makes decisions relatively quickly on if they’re going to need rope rescue or something like that,” said Iowa County Sheriff Michael Peterson. “And in Iowa County, we have Iowa County Tech rescue, which is about 30 members of our local fire and EMS agencies that spend a lot of time training for instance like this.”

The 4-year-old child fell 80 feet from the ledge, while the 6-year-old fell 20 feet. UW Health Med Flight was called for one of the children, and Dodgeville EMS transported the other to a local hospital. Iowa Co. said both children sustained serious injuries from the fall. Peterson noted the challenge of getting to an incident in the over 5,000 acres of the park and figuring out what needs to be done quickly is a coordinated effort, requiring a lot of departments and personnel acting fast together.

“You feel very good with your team. It’s 2:30 in the afternoon, and you have a lot of people in rural areas that work outside of the county,” said Peterson. “We’re able to get members there relatively quickly and able to get someone off a cliff safely.”

Authorities did not say how the fall happened nor offer any information on the family of the kids.

“This call came in shortly after a call of a semi rollover in the city of Dodgeville. Numerous resources were needed for both incidents today. Our first responders did an amazing job today, and they need to be recognized for the work that they do every day,” Peterson said.

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