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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE MORNING REPORT Wednesday, March 5, 2014 INCIDENTS Organ Pipe Cactus NM Injured Woman Rescued Through Interagency Effort On the night of February 22nd, rangers responded to a report of visitors hearing screaming in Arch Canyon and began a hasty search along the established visitor trail with assistance from a Border Patrol agent. A Customs and Border Protection helicopter and high-altitude aircraft joined the effort. About 45 minutes later, two people were spotted from the aircraft, separated by a significant elevation gap. Rangers reached the first person, who was uninjured, and escorted her down to the visitor trail while the agent attempted to find and reach the second person, who was suffering from injuries sustained in a fall of from 20 to 30 feet. She was found a short time later. Other rangers responded with a litter, medical equipment and SAR equipment. Due to darkness, terrain and the number of personnel engaged, rangers decided to keep the woman comfortable and stay with her throughout the night. At first light, more rangers arrived on scene along with US Border Patrol agents from the Ajo Station and the Border Patrol Search, Trauma & Rescue (BORSTAR) Team. The joint team began a high-angle rescue operation, lowering the injured woman from a cliff into a more open area. The rescuers were joined by an Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter, which short-hauled the woman out of the canyon on a 150-foot line. She was then flown via medical helicopter to a Tucson hospital, where she was treated for two fractured legs, a fractured clavicle and multiple abrasions and lacerations. This incident was executed using assets from the NPS, Border Patrol, Arizona Department of Public Safety and Native Air Ambulance Service. [Marshall Anderson, Supervisory Park Ranger] Grand Canyon NP Remains May Be Of Man Missing Since 2010 Additional information has been received on the discovery of human remains in the Hermit Creek drainage, reported in last Friday's edition. On September 4, 2013, a river ranger was given a wallet found at Hermit Rapids by a visitor on a private river trip on the Colorado River. The wallet, which was badly weathered, contained an Arizona identification card. The person associated with the wallet, who was from the Tucson area, was determined to have been missing since 2010. A joint investigation was begun that involved rangers, ISB investigators, and personnel from the Tucson Police Department. The man was homeless and a transient, so little information was available to guide investigators, but ISB did located a record of the man having taken a shuttle from Flagstaff to Williams six days before being reported missing in 2010. A DNA sample was also obtained from the missing man's brother in Washington and sent to the University of North Texas to be kept on file as a reference. Searches of the Hermit Creek drainage were made in an attempt to find clues, but with negative results. On February 17th, a backpacker found several items in a small side canyon off of Hermit Creek. The items included a weathered backpack, a boot insole, grocery bags, and what he believed to be a long human bone. He reported the items to park rangers the next day. On February 20th, an ISB special agent, a helicopter flight crew, and two Canyon District rangers searched the area and found 28 pieces of evidence, including nine bones. On February 21st, ISB took the bones to the Coconino County Medical Examiner's Office, where three of the nine bones were positively identified as human by an anthropologist. The anthropologist estimated the height of the subject as 6'1”, which matched the description of the missing man. Final DNA confirmation of the subject's identify will be made by the Coconino County Medical Examiner and the University of North Texas but primary investigation indicates the remains may be those of the missing Tucson resident. [Investigative Services Branch] OTHER NEWS The following stories are among those in today's webpage editions of InsideNPS (available to NPS employees only) and the Morning Report (available to all readers): Craters of the Moon NM&P - The winter school program at Craters of the Moon, which centers on snowshoeing in the park, continues to grow in popularity, with more than 1100 Idaho school children from kindergarten to high school visiting the park this winter. Office of Communications - Pacific Historic Parks and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy are the recipients of the 2013 Director's Partnership Awards. Dry Tortugas NP - The director of Russia's protected area network headed a delegation of park professionals from that country who recently visited Dry Tortugas to learn how the park is managed and operated. Keweenaw NHP - Bryce Hoduski, 22, the son of career NPS employee Brian Hoduski and his wife Tammy, passed away suddenly from a suspected pulmonary embolism on February 25th. To see the full text of these stories, readers should go to one or the other of the following sites: NPS employees - HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index Non-NPS employees - HYPERLINK "http://www.nps.gov/morningreport/" http://www.nps.gov/morningreport/ The Morning Report is produced by the Office of Communications with the support of the Office of the Associate Director for Information Resources. Edited by Bill Halainen ( HYPERLINK "mailto:Bill_Halainen@contractor.nps.gov" Bill_Halainen@contractor.nps.gov). --- ### --- |