A woman who came to the United States from Iran less than two years ago died last week when she jumped 60 feet from the top of a North Carolina waterfall and landed in shallow water.
There was no indication this was a suicide, but rather due to lack of knowledge of the depth of the water at the base of the waterfall.
Elk River Falls is located in a national forest in western North Carolina. Agency spokeswoman Patty Matteson said signs warning visitors against jumping from cliffs had been posted along the trail near the waterfall but, “from our understanding,… they had been taken down.” Matteson said authorities are working to put the warning signs back up.
The woman who died last Sunday was identified as Sheida Hosseinzadeh, 26. She had just started a job two months ago at a local design firm after earning a master’s degree in architecture at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
It was just the next step for a talented young woman who spoke three languages and dreamed of working at a large architectural firm, said Mona Azarbayjani, an assistant professor of architecture at UNC Charlotte who Hosseinzadeh assisted with research projects for nearly two years.
“She was such an asset to the research,” Azarbayjani told the Charlotte News-Observer. “She was just so bright and very lively. She was always laughing.”
The youngest of three sisters, Hosseinzadeh moved to Charlotte from Iran in fall 2013, Azarbayjani said. She earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture at the Iran University of Science and Technology in 2012, according to her LinkedIn profile.
“She had a tremendous career ahead of her,” said Scott Betzold, the managing partner of D3 Studio, a planning and architecture firm where Hosseinzadeh interned a year ago. “She had a knack for helping us look at something in a way that we hadn’t considered.”