NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

MORNING REPORT

BLACKBERRY EDITION

Monday, February 27, 2006

===============================================================================================================

INCIDENTS

Yosemite NP

Holiday Weekend Storm Causes Multiple Accidents

On Sunday, February 19th, the Big Oak Flat Entrance Station received a report of a single vehicle accident just outside the park boundary on State Highway 120. Rangers responded and discovered a sport utility vehicle that had struck a large pine tree, causing multiple injuries to the occupants. EMS, law enforcement, and fire personnel responded from Tuolumne County, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and the park. Due to blizzard conditions, response was slow and extremely hazardous. Ranger/medics coordinated the medical care, while Tuolumne County Fire and Yosemite Fire handled extrication of one patient, CHP investigated the accident, and plow drivers directed traffic. A total of six people were transported by county and two park ambulances with transport times greater than one hour to trauma centers. Two patients remain in intensive care at this time. During the holiday weekend, rangers responded to about 30 other motor vehicle accidents, one involving eight vehicles and an ambulance that slid off the icy road and two in which vehicles collided with NPS snowplows. Temporary road closures and mandatory tire chain requirements continued throughout the weekend. Other incidents included two SARs, two arrests, and a major power outage which closed lifts at Yosemite's Badger Pass ski area. [Greg Lawler, Subdistrict Ranger]

Great Smoky Mountains NP

Visitors Rescued After Car Plunges Into River

On the afternoon of February 18th, a passenger car being driven westbound on Little River Road hit a patch of ice and skidded out of control. The vehicle hit the steep hillside on the left side of the road, careened across the highway, rolled over a very rocky, vertical embankment, and ended up twenty feet below in the Little River. It was snowing at the time, and park maintenance workers were in the process of plowing and sanding the road. The car landed upright in the river in very swift moving water that was about five feet deep. The NPS maintenance worker who was plowing the road saw the vehicle go into the river. He immediately radioed park dispatch, then found a route down the embankment to the river to assist the victims. By the time he reached the male driver and his wife, they had gotten themselves out of the vehicle and were standing in the swift current beside the vehicle about twelve feet from the shore. While assisting them back upriver to the path back to the roadway, the maintenance employee slipped and fell into the ice cold river, becoming completely submerged in a hole over seven feet deep. He was able to get out, though, and make his way back to the shoreline. Rangers who arrived on scene provided medical attention and warmed the couple and the maintenance worker. [Rick Brown, Acting Chief Ranger]

* * * * *

Prepared by Visitor and Resource Protection, WASO, with the cooperation and support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.

--- ### ---