The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has identified the man who fell to his death from atop West Rock Sunday as Robert Anastasio, a 26-year-old man from Hamden.
State investigators used fingerprints and police records to learn his identity. he had not left any belongings behind at the scene of his fatal fall.
Following is an earlier version of this story:
This much firefighters know about the man who died after falling off a West Rock cliff Sunday night: He wasn’t climbing the rock.
They don’t know his name yet. Or why he was up there.
So said Assistant Fire Chief Matt Marcarelli Monday afternoon.
Marcarelli oversaw a crew that retrieved the body of the dead man Monday morning.
The man had fallen from the southern overlook of West Rock around 5:40 p.m. Sunday, Marcarelli said. (They had been to West Rock on an unrelated call three hours earlier.) Witnesses said the man was standing on a ledge near the pavilion. “He started yelling. Then he wasn’t there anymore,” Marcarelli said.
Firefighters arrived and mounted a rescue operation. One firefighter was lowered to do “reconnaissance,” Maracarelli said. The firefighter was in physical contact with the victim and determined he was dead.
At that point fire officials made the decision to wait until morning to remove the body.
“We did a risk assessment profile and determined that it was too hazardous at that point to mount a rescue effort. If there was any chance that he was viable, we would have mounted the rescue effort despite the risk to our personnel,” Marcarelli said while directing the scene of the resumed rescue around 7:30 a.m. Monday. The rescue was complete by around 10 a.m.
The man had no identification on him, Marcarelli said. He estimated that the man was around 30 years old. He fell around 250 – 300 feet to his death.
Firefighters found no personal belongings at the scene, “no bags, no empty bottles.”
His body was being turned over to the chief state medical examiner for further investigation.
How sad. I knew a young woman who lost her life the same way, not at West Rock but a similar location. You never think it's going to happen to you.