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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE MORNING REPORT BLACKBERRY EDITION Tuesday, January 31, 2006 =============================================================================================================== INCIDENTS Delaware Water Gap NRA Man Rescued Following Fall Into Creek On the afternoon of Saturday, January 7th, rangers and local firefighters and emergency medical personnel rescued a New Jersey man who fell about 30 feet from an icy park trail, landing in a stream below. The 57-year-old man and his wife were hiking on the Indian Ladder trail in the park's Pennsylvania District when he lost his footing and tumbled into Hornbeck Creek. Shortly thereafter, two other hikers came upon the scene. While the man's wife headed back down the trail to a point where she could get cell phone reception and dial 911, one of the hikers made his way down to the man, who was suffering from a head injury and from hypothermia due to his immersion in the stream. The hiker had additional clothes with him and was able to help the man change into them, thereby minimizing the impacts of hypothermia. Responding along with the park's high-angle rescue and evacuation teams were firefighters and emergency medical personnel from Delaware Township, Dingman Township, Bushill, Milford and Hemlock Farms. Together, they were able to safely extricate the man from the creek and bring him to a location where a medevac helicopter could pick him up and fly him to Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown. Doctors treated him for his head injury, which proved minor, and for hypothermia, and kept him overnight at the hospital. Rangers believe that the hiker's quick thinking and prompt action in getting the man out of his wet clothes greatly reduced the impact that the hypothermia might have had on him. [Joe Hinkes, Park Ranger]
PARKS AND PEOPLE Colonial NHP Chuck Rafkind Retires Chuck Rafkind is retiring on January 31st after 33 years and two weeks in the NPS. He is currently the natural resource manager at Colonial National Historical Park. During his time at Colonial NHP, Chuck developed from scratch the park's natural resource and geographic information system program. He is leaving the program in excellent condition, with a vast amount of data concerning the park's unique natural resources and with plans on how to better protect the park's resources. Chuck has developed several award-winning, park-based geographic information systems working with NCSU GIS FTSC. He is proud of the extensive partnership-based science and natural resource management program he has developed. “I've enjoyed and appreciated the many opportunities to work on a wide variety of environmental projects and activities, travel far and wide, and make many new friends,” he says. “I look back and know how fortunate I was to work with and learn from so many outstanding people in and outside of the NPS.” Chuck served on the NPS Northeast coastal and barrier network science advisory board. He was a co-author of the first NPS air quality and GIS management plans, and has participated on several Servicewide natural resource management initiatives. He also served for the last several years at the George Wright Society conferences as the official paparazzi, and will continue to do so in 2007. Chuck is a graduate of the NPS natural resource management training program. Previous to his current position, he was chief ranger at Richmond NBP, where he developed the GIS and natural resource management programs with NCSU. While at Richmond NBP, he coordinated the first ARPA operation at the park, which led to the first ARPA prosecution east of the Mississippi and the first looters sent to jail. Retirement will see him stay in the Newport News area, restarting his photography business, traveling often, getting involved in new educational and volunteer opportunities, catching up on pleasure versus technical reading, and continuing to email articles, humor, and restaurant - book-video recommendations to his list-server of folks. He can be reached at HYPERLINK "mailto:rafkindc@yahoo.com" rafkindc@yahoo.com. [Tom Nash, Chief Ranger] * * * * * Prepared by Visitor and Resource Protection, WASO, with the cooperation and support of Delaware Water Gap NRA. --- ### --- |