Searchers in India to continue hunt for Minnetonka hiker's body

September 27, 2011 at 1:17AM
Tom Plotkin
Tom Plotkin (Dml -/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Searchers spent Monday looking for a college student from Minnetonka who presumably fell to his death while hiking along a treacherous path near a river in India.

Thomas Plotkin, a former Hopkins High School hockey and lacrosse player, fell Thursday while leading the hike on a cobblestone trail with five others near Munsiyari, India, when he twisted his ankle and went down a 100-yard drop to a boulder-strewn ledge near the flooded Ganges.

Plotkin was a junior majoring in international business at the University of Iowa. He had enrolled for a semester in the National Outdoor Leadership School of Lander, Wyo.

School spokesman Bruce Palmer said searchers found nothing Monday that got them closer to finding Plotkin.

School personnel have been handling the search in "the particularly difficult terrain," while local community members have been looking elsewhere, Palmer said. The search will resume Tuesday.

Palmer said Plotkin's rain jacket and head lamp were found the day after he fell "right at the bottom of the slope that he had fallen down, right by the river. That's what led us to the conclusion that the body had gone into the river."

PAUL WALSH

about the writer

about the writer

Paul Walsh

Reporter

Paul Walsh is a general assignment reporter at the Minnesota Star Tribune. He wants your news tips, especially in and near Minnesota.

See More