Grand Canyon Bride Dies in 300-Foot Fall

A young woman married at the Grand Canyon fell 300 feet to her death at the giant chasm. Experienced hiker Ioana Hociota, 24, likely plunged as a rock gave way beneath her as she was attempting to become the youngest person ever to hike across the entire canyon. "It's tempting for people to think that a beautiful young woman might have been there out of her element and out of her head. She absolutely was not," said husband Andrew Holycross.

Hociota, an Arizonan born in Romania, was married last summer at the canyon's Marble Point, then took the wedding party on a 25-mile hike, reports the Daily Mail. She had covered some 850 miles of the canyon at the time of her death, and was 80 miles from completing her dream. She slipped while hiking with a partner who heard a "short cry," he recalled. "Then the blood froze in my veins. I heard a dull thump. I ran back to the saddle calling for her. There was incredible silence." The coroner believes Hociota died instantly. Her husband plans to complete her final Grand Canyon miles. (More Ioana Hociota stories.)