Hiker Falls to Death Trying to Help Friend on Mount Baldy

WESTMINSTER, Calif.—Authorities say a 23-year-old man fell to his death on Southern California’s Mount Baldy when he reached out his hand to save a friend who had slipped while hiking.

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Corporal Robert Whiteside says the two men were on a particularly steep and narrow section of the Devil’s Backbone trail Tuesday when one of them slipped.

Whiteside says Daniel Nguyen of Westminster reached out to help his friend and then lost his footing, falling about 1,500 feet down the mountainside. It took crews three hours in icy and windy conditions to retrieve the body.

Nguyen’s aunt, Tina Thomas, tells the Orange County Register her nephew, a recent Cal State Long Beach graduate, was a selfless young man who loved being outdoors.

Avid hiker Daniel Nguyen, 23, fell to his death in Mount Baldy while trying to help a friend https://t.co/rrdFXyzgg3https://t.co/mgujDfIzC9

— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) February 4, 2016

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