A walk along a North Texas trail ended in tragedy after a visually impaired woman apparently slipped into White Rock Creek and died, according to her pastor.<\/p>\n
Gwen McTernen, 66, was a mother and grandmother who lived in Richardson.<\/p>\n
McTernen had been a member of Messiah Lutheran Church for more than 20 years, said the Rev. Victor Kollmann.<\/p>\n
\u201cI call her a wonderful gift from God to all of us because everybody who knew her, she made a difference in their lives, and we’ll miss her a lot,\u201d Kollmann said.<\/p>\n
Kollmann described McTernen as a strong woman of faith who rarely missed a Wednesday service at the church in North Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmazing woman because she was blind pretty much her whole life,\u201d Kollmann said. \u201c[She] was so independent, like every day, every other day she went walking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kollmann said McTernen took DART to Dallas on Saturday for a walk along the White Rock Creek Trail.<\/p>\n
McTernen\u2019s daughter wrote on Facebook that she lost communication with her mother after McTernen embarked on a trail hike.<\/p>\n
Her last known location was near Harry Moss Park at about 8 a.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n
Missing person flyers remained posted at the park on Wednesday, but the search for McTernen ended Monday evening when Richardson police say someone at the park reported a deceased body.<\/p>\n
Dallas Fire-Rescue said crews were called to the 8500 block of Walnut Hill Lane in Dallas after a body was found in a creek bottom.<\/p>\n
Authorities later identified the body as McTernen. Police say no foul play is suspected.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe used a cane to walk because she was blind, and they think somehow she slipped off the sidewalk and just fell because it was right off a steep slope and just slipped because it was so wet, just slipped down the slope into the water,\u201d Kollmann said.<\/p>\n
Faith helped guide McTernen through life without sight. Now, fellow parishioners say they are holding onto that same faith as they remember her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s no doubt we’ll all see her again in heaven,\u201d Kollmann said.<\/p>\n
Authorities say the cause and manner of death have not been determined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A walk along a North Texas trail ended in tragedy after a visually impaired woman apparently slipped into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,430],"class_list":["post-201867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-north-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}