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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE MORNING REPORT Thursday, August 2, 2007 =============================================================================================================== INCIDENTS Yosemite NP Major Search In Progress For Missing Woman On July 30th, the park received a report that an 80-year-old woman had become separated from her hiking group. The woman was part of a small group hiking in the Yosemite wilderness and staying at the Vogelsang High Sierra Camp. They were hiking to Ireland Lake when she decided to return to the camp to retrieve some food. She failed to rejoin the group. Information from other hikers indicated that she'd been near Emeric Lake on the afternoon of the 30th. Emeric Lake is about two-and-a-half miles west of Vogelsang, while Ireland Lake is five miles to the east. The woman has a history of memory loss. Search operations began that evening and expanded throughout the following day. Four search dog teams, two helicopters and over 100 searchers have been committed to the search. Sally Sprouse is the IC. [Charles Cuvelier, Deputy Chief Ranger; Adrienne Freeman, Public Affairs Specialist] Glacier NP Rescue Of Injured Hikers On the evening of July 29th, a ranger was contacted by members of a hiking group who reported that a 40-year-old man and a 13-year-old girl had been struck by falling rocks on the Grinnell Glacier Trail. The reporting party said that the girl had been struck in the head with a rock weighing about 20 pounds and had been severely injured. The man suffered an injury to his leg and was unable to walk. Park search and rescue personnel responded, as did an EMS helicopter from Kalispell Regional Medical Center. Park personnel provided emergency medical care and loaded the patients on the EMS helicopter for transport to Kalispell Regional Medical Center. An interagency contract helicopter assigned to the Skyland Fire was used to backhaul rescue and medical equipment from the scene. A herd of bighorn sheep were seen above the trail prior to the rock fall. [Rich Browne, Chief Mountain Subdistrict Ranger] Grand Teton NP Multi-Agency Response To Serious Accident Rangers, Jackson Hole fire and EMS personnel and a Teton interagency fire engine crew responded to the scene of a single vehicle accident involving a seriously injured driver on the afternoon of Sunday, July 29th. As a result of injuries received in the accident, L.D., 68, a seasonal employee of Grand Teton Lodge Company, later died at the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls. L.D. was driving a company vehicle southbound on Teton Park Road about a quarter mile north of the Spalding Bay access road when for unknown reasons he veered across the northbound lane of traffic, narrowly missed an oncoming vehicle, and landed at the bottom of a steep road embankment. L.D. was tightly pinned inside the cab of the truck as it came to rest, crushed against several pine trees. The truck also broke off three large pine trees as it slid down the embankment. Teton Interagency Dispatch Center received a 911 call at 3 p.m. from the motorist who narrowly missed hitting L.D.'s vehicle as it crossed the center line. L.D. was so completely pinned inside the cab of the truck that it took about two hours to release him from the vehicle. Teton interagency fire personnel removed several trees to assist in the extrication operation, and the extrication team used the “jaws of life” to remove the truck's dashboard before L.D. could be safely released from the vehicle. L.D. was given emergency medical care during the entire operation. Although the vehicle's air bags deployed, L.D., who was not wearing a seatbelt, received traumatic injuries in the accident. L.D. was flown directly from the scene by a life flight helicopter to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center for treatment. Rangers established a landing zone for the helicopter on the closed portion of the Teton Park Road. While emergency personnel worked to extricate L.D. from the pick-up, the Teton Park Road was closed to all traffic for approximately three hours from the Spalding Bay access road to a point just south of the Mount Moran scenic turnout. The mutual aid response to this accident involved the expertise and coordination of multiple agencies and emergency personnel from Grand Teton National Park, Teton County, and Teton interagency fire. Local agencies cross train with one another in order to be better prepared for responding to incidents such as this single vehicle accident. That training proved invaluable to this incident. [Jackie Skaggs, Public Affairs Specialist] Redwood N&SP Rescue From Beach Cliff Face Park dispatch advised rangers that Del Norte County SAR was responding to a report of a man stuck on the cliff below the Crescent Beach overlook around 4:30 p.m. on July 30th. Ranger Kain Hanschke contacted the SAR team leader, who told him that Jamie Sanger, 39, of Phoenix, Arizona, was stuck on the cliff but was uninjured and was in touch with their dispatcher via his cell phone. Sanger could not be seen from either the overlook or the beach below. A Coast Guard helicopter was called in and a hoist operation Sanger was successfully extracted about an hour later. He was then flown to the Crescent City airport, where he was picked up by his wife. [Doug Corrigan, Acting Chief Ranger] OTHER NEWS The following stories (among others) can be read on either the InsideNPS web site (if you are within the National Park Service) or at the InsideNPS public ‘news digest' site (if you are outside of the NPS). The web sites appear below: Lowell NHP - The 21st edition of the annual Lowell Folk Festival, held from July 27th through July 29th, drew more than 150,000 visitors. Twenty-four traditional performance groups provided music and more at six stages. Shenandoah NP - News story: “Deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Shenandoah National Park, a mystery lies in the shadows of stony cliffs and sinkholes. That mystery is a 3- to 4-inch-long salamander that hasn't been found anywhere else in the world — the Shenandoah salamander.” To see the above articles, go to InsideNPS ( HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/" http://inside.nps.gov/) or NPS Digest ( HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/). For NPS incident reporting standards, go to HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=viewnpsnewsarticle&type=Announcements&id=3363" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=viewnpsnewsarticle&type=Announcements&id=3363 * * * * * Prepared by the Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services, Washington Office, with the cooperation and support of Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Edited by Bill Halainen ( HYPERLINK "mailto:Bill_Halainen@nps.gov" Bill_Halainen@nps.gov, 570-426-2430). --- ### --- |