“1. MICHAEL McLEAN
Too much beer and a misstep
Impaired from drinking beer with friends at a campsite, Michael McLean of Janesville went hiking in the middle of the night. Lost, he stepped off a rock in a boulder field and fell 60 feet.
He spent about three weeks in the hospital, the first one in a coma. He broke his pelvis, wrist and an eye socket and suffered frontal lobe brain damage. A year after the June 2006 accident, he has problems with short-term memory and coming up with words.
"I guess it's rare to make it through what I did," said McLean, now 24 and a factory worker. "I talk about it quite a bit with people because I don't want to see people do anything as stupid as what I did."
2. STEVEN BURKE
Hiker tripped, fell 100 feet
While hiking with a group of friends about 8 p.m., Steven Burke, 40, of Green Bay, apparently tripped near an overlook and fell more than 100 feet in August of 1994.
The area where he fell was difficult to access, even for a rescue team. He was lifted with ropes and baskets, then taken to an open area where a helicopter flew him to a hospital.
He was conscious and coherent when rescuers reached him, but suffering from head injuries. He died from those injuries about two weeks later.
3. MATTHEW SLOSS
A sad night for Illinois family
Matthew Sloss, a drummer in a rock band, had always been a risk taker and somewhat rebellious, his parents said.
On the night of his death in August of 2003, the 20-year-old from Lake Zurich, Ill., was supposed to go to a Chicago Cubs game with his siblings but slipped out of town with a friend.
The two drove to Devil's Lake State Park, arriving about 12:30 a.m., 90 minutes after the park closed. They scaled a locked gate and hiked a service road to a rock outcropping, where they sat and talked under a bright moon.
They were just preparing to hike some more when Sloss said he was going to urinate over the ledge, his friend later said. Sloss fell forward and didn't make a sound as he fell 50 feet.
Emergency personnel struggled for two hours to retrieve his body. He was an organ donor, but only some of tissue and bones and his eyes could be donated due to the impact.
A coroner's report said his blood-alcohol level that night was more than three times the legal limit. He was on probation at the time for a drunken-driving conviction and was not to leave Illinois or drink alcohol, according to the accident report.
"He basically had no business being there," said his mother, Linda Sloss. "It was a very sad night, but I certainly never blamed the park for it."
William Sloss said his son's death haunts him. "Why wasn't there a scream? Did he black out? Did he have a heart attack? It will always be a mystery. I don't like mysteries."”
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