By Georgina Brennan

The Irish Consulate in San Francisco has confirmed that a young Irish J-1 visa student died from a fall after posing for a photograph in the 760,000-acre Yosemite National Park last week.

Shane Kinsella, 21, from Dublin, was hiking near Yosemite Falls, the tallest waterfall in North America, at 2,425 feet, with two friends when he slipped during a pose for a souvenir photograph.

Yosemite National Park Ranger Scott Gediman said it was a terrible tragedy that nobody could have foreseen.

“After hiking three and a half miles up to the spot, he was posing for photographs and he fell right off the top of the waterfall, straight down 1,430 feet. It was tragic,” he said.

Horrified tourists at the bottom of the waterfall witnessed his descent, but he was left lying at the bottom of the pool for a day because it was so dangerous for rescue workers to reach him, said the ranger. Yosemite National Park rangers recovered his body.

Gediman said the parents flew over to California to accompany their son’s body home. His friends left the U.S. on Saturday.

The consulate in San Francisco confirmed that it offered consular service to the family.

In the last 30 years, about 10 people have gone over waterfalls in the park and died, Gediman said.

“It is uncommon,” he said. “Let’s hope it doesn’t become common.”