Backpack snags on fence; man strangled

A panhandler died climbing over a 6-foot-tall chain-link fence while drinking beer and walking with his girlfriend from their begging site to their homeless camp, Vancouver, Wash., police said.

James Francis Henry, 51, died Tuesday night from accidental strangulation after he fell and a strap of his heavy backpack became snagged on a top bar of the metal fence, officials said.

His girlfriend, 38-year-old Kelli Jo Barkley, told police she was with him when he became trapped and told her "Help me! Help me!" according to a Vancouver Police Department report.

Barkley said she tried for several minutes to free him but couldn't lift the backpack.

When Henry became limp, she ran and banged on the door of a nearby home in the 11400 block of Southeast 19th Street, west of Interstate 205 and north of state Highway 14.

About 10 p.m. Tuesday, a man who lives there called 911 to report the woman's cries that her friend was stuck on the fence and might be dead.

The Vancouver Fire Department, AMR Northwest ambulance company and police rushed to the scene.

When a police officer arrived, Barkley waved him down and pointed to the fence.

The officer found Henry hanging with his arms limp and not breathing, the report said. His arms were through their straps and his neck was caught on the full-frame pack's chest strap, the report said.

Firefighters cut through the locked fence gate to the other side and pulled Henry down. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him in an ambulance before he was pronounced dead about 10:35 p.m.

Barkley said they'd been drinking beer after "flagging" for money at Southeast Mill Plain Boulevard and Interstate 205, the report said.

She said they'd climbed the fence to take a shortcut to a nearby homeless camp.

In the backpack, an officer found about a dozen 40-ounce bottles full of beer, the report said.