Af­ter sur­viv­ing al­most sev­en hours with painful frac­tures and bruis­es af­ter falling off the San Fer­nan­do Hill, moth­er of one Re­nee Mitchell could no longer hold on.

Af­ter be­ing res­cued by fire of­fi­cers, Mitchell, 39, a teacher at the Brighton An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School, died at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal at 7.20 am yes­ter­day from mul­ti­ple in­juries she suf­fered while at­tend­ing Il­lu­sion’s Solset: Su­per­no­va Pre­mi­um Drinks Fete on Sat­ur­day night.

Po­lice re­ports stat­ed that Mitchell went to re­lieve her­self out­side the fete be­tween a hedge at 11.55 pm. Her boyfriend, Pe­ter Re­beiro, was stand­ing near­by when the dirt un­der her feet gave way, and she fell  40 feet off the cliff, rolling al­most 20 feet on a de­clin­ing sur­face be­fore com­ing to a hard stop. Re­beiro im­me­di­ate­ly alert­ed fire of­fi­cers at the fete, who called for res­cuers at the Mon Re­pos Fire Sta­tion.

The res­cue team at­tempt­ed to reach Mitchell from the base of the hill be­hind the Ol­era Heights com­mu­ni­ty, but low light­ing, bush­es and the rocky ter­rain made it un­safe. They then re­turned to the top, low­ered them­selves by rope and lo­cat­ed her with­in an hour, still con­scious. The res­cuers worked to sta­bilise Mitchell, who was in and out of con­scious­ness, be­fore se­cur­ing her on a back­board and as­cend­ing. They fi­nal­ly made it back to the top hours lat­er around 6.45 am yes­ter­day. It was then medics placed her in an am­bu­lance and took her to the hos­pi­tal, where she suc­cumbed to her in­juries.

Al­though an au­top­sy will take place this week, in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve she died from poly­trau­ma—which is when mul­ti­ple in­juries are sus­tained, some of which may cause sig­nif­i­cant dis­abil­i­ty and are life-threat­en­ing.

Ol­era Heights res­i­dents at the base of the hill were shocked to learn of the tragedy. Res­i­dents said they were ac­cus­tomed to par­ties on the hill and usu­al­ly slept through it. One res­i­dent said she heard men talk­ing in the bush­es but did not know what oc­curred.

“This morn­ing, about 5 o’clock, I got up to go to church, and I heard peo­ple on the hill talk­ing and say­ing, it down there. That was all I heard, and they kept on talk­ing, but I left to go to the bath­room to bathe to go to church,” the res­i­dent said.

De­spite the edges of the hill be­ing cor­doned off with wire bar­ri­ers and hav­ing mul­ti­ple warn­ing signs, there is an is­sue of safe­ty.

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris said every trag­ic event is more or less a pro­nounce­ment for a con­ver­sa­tion.

Par­ris re­called tak­ing his daugh­ter to San Fer­nan­do Hill a few weeks ago and see­ing chil­dren rid­ing their bikes un­su­per­vised. Par­ris said he be­came wor­ried as he was pro­tec­tive, es­pe­cial­ly with chil­dren, so there was def­i­nite­ly a need to look at safe­ty.

He said Mitchell’s death was a tragedy he nev­er wants to hap­pen again. 

How­ev­er,  Par­ris said it was the first time he had ever heard of such an in­ci­dent oc­cur­ring at an event on the hill.

“It is tru­ly a tragedy. Imag­ine some­one go­ing to a par­ty and want­i­ng to re­lieve them­selves and falling in the man­ner re­port­ed now. I sin­cere­ly send my con­do­lences to the en­tire fam­i­ly,” the May­or said.

Probes on­go­ing

There was al­so shock at Mitchell’s River­side North, Corinth com­mu­ni­ty as the news reached home. Many re­called see­ing her walk­ing her one-year-old son around the neigh­bour­hood re­cent­ly. They de­scribed her as qui­et and pleas­ant.

Rel­a­tives out­side the hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary de­clined to speak, say­ing they were now gath­er­ing in­for­ma­tion.

They would on­ly con­firm that Mitchell had died af­ter falling off the hill. Mean­while, the fete pro­mot­er, Dami­an Ba­boolal of Il­lu­sions, de­clined to com­ment, say­ing the team was al­so col­lect­ing the facts and work­ing with au­thor­i­ties.

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries (MALF) of­fered its con­do­lences to fam­i­ly, friends, pupils and teach­ing col­leagues of Mitchell.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, it stat­ed that Mitchell suf­fered a fa­tal fall at a Car­ni­val event on the San Fer­nan­do Hill, which falls un­der the re­mit of the Forestry Di­vi­sion of the min­istry.

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries said the di­vi­sion was ac­tive­ly co-op­er­at­ing with in­ves­ti­ga­tors, and its im­me­di­ate con­cern was to lend sup­port to Mitchell’s fam­i­ly, stu­dents and col­leagues.

“At the same time, the Forestry Di­vi­sion has been man­dat­ed to en­sure that the pub­lic can safe­ly use the fa­cil­i­ties at San Fer­nan­do Hill. We know this is a dif­fi­cult time for all those who knew Re­nee, and the cir­cum­stances of her death make it even more dif­fi­cult.”

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the loved ones, col­leagues and pupils of Mitchell.

In a post on its Face­book page, the min­istry de­scribed Mitchell as a “beloved teacher at the Brighton AC Pri­ma­ry School”.

It said the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion has been mo­bilised to pro­vide the nec­es­sary sup­port to the pupils and co-work­ers.

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry said: “Let us con­tin­ue to of­fer love and as­sis­tance to those who may be af­fect­ed by this pro­found loss.”