The parents of Colleen Burns, the 35-year-old woman who fell to her death at the Grand Canyon, have revealed their daughter’s last words to them, PEOPLE reports.
Burns was hiking on a trail at the iconic park’s South Kaibab Trail on Friday when she tried to make room for a fellow hiker and slipped off Ooh Aah Point, Grand Canyon National park officials reported. She fell 400 feet into the canyon below, and the Coconino County Public Health Service’s Medical Examiner’s Office has revealed that Burns died from “multiple blunt force injuries.”
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Catherine Burns, Colleen’s mother, stated regarding her daughter’s death: “I saw the last photo she posted before she died, where she is looking at the canyon, and it put a chill through my body because I’m afraid of heights and I was afraid for her. I shut down my computer because it freaked me out so much.”
“And then the next day we lost her.”
Catherine also shared the last conversation she had with her daughter over the phone the day prior to Burns’ departure for the Grand Canyon.
“I always worry about her like a typical mother, so I was asking her questions about her travel and safety and stuff,” she said. “It ended up being a deep conversation. The last thing she said to me was, ‘Mom, I’m content in my life…I want to travel and see the world.’ “
“She had so much love to give the world,” Catherine recalled. “She wanted everyone to be kinder and to be their best.”
Colleen’s father, Jim Burns, hopes that the death of his daughter will encourage others to make safe choices on the popular hiking trails.
“I never realized how many deaths occur at the Grand Canyon,” he explained. “People have to be very careful not to take chances and crowds cannot gather. Multiple people can’t gather on the path if it’s not big enough, which is how she died. If the path is meant for a single person, two people can’t be on it.”
Catherine and Jim Burns shared that their daughter will be cremated after a gathering at Pennsylvania’s Springfield Country Club on Saturday.
“We are having a celebration of her life, she would have wanted that,” Jim stated. “We just loved her so much and she was an amazing, amazing woman.”
“We couldn’t have asked for anything more from her, except more time.”
