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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE MORNING REPORT Monday, July 14, 2014 INCIDENTS Rocky Mountain NP Lightning Kills Two, Injures Ten In Separate Incidents Lightning strikes killed two park visitors and injured ten others on park trails in separate incidents this past Friday and Saturday. Around 1:20 p.m. on Friday, July 11th, the park was notified that a lightning strike had hit a number of visitors on the Ute Crossing Trail, located off of Trail Ridge Road between Rainbow Curve and Forest Canyon Overlook. Eight visitors suffered a variety of injuries from the strike, with a 42-year-old Ohio woman succumbing to her injuries. Of the remaining seven, two were transported by ambulance and five transported themselves to the Estes Park Medical Center. Just before 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 12th, rangers were apprised of a lightning strike that injured four people, also near Rainbow Curve. All were taken to Estes Park Medical Center via ambulance. One of the four, a 52-year-old Nebraska man, did not survive. The last lightning fatality that occurred in Rocky Mountain National Park was in 2000, when a technical climber was struck on the Diamond on Longs Peak. [Kyle Patterson, Public Affairs Officer] Grand Teton NP Twenty-Seven Tour Bus Occupants Injured In Crash A commercial tour bus carrying 26 passengers and a driver crashed approximately four miles north of Colter Bay Village just after 4 p.m. on Thursday, July 10th. Twenty-four people were transported by three Grand Teton ambulances, a Jackson Hole Fire/EMS ambulance and a Grand Teton Lodge Company passenger van to receive medical care at St. John's Medical Center in Jackson, Wyoming. Two seriously injured passengers were flown to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls via two life-flight helicopters that were able to land near the accident site. The single-vehicle accident caused the complete closure of Highway 89/287 (both lanes) between Colter Bay and the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway for nearly five hours on Wednesday afternoon and evening. Motorists traveling between Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks were diverted to Jackson Lake Lodge and Colter Bay Village during the highway closure. Southbound motorists were sent to Headwaters Lodge and Cabins at Flagg Ranch and Grant Village in Yellowstone National Park to wait out the travel delay. The vehicle wreckage was cleared and Grand Teton rangers reopened the highway at 9:10 p.m. Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers and Grand Teton National Park rangers are jointly conducting an accident investigation. The 33-foot-long bus came to rest on its side in the center of the roadway and perpendicular to the traffic lanes. Although the bus did not completely roll over, the impact of the crash caused some level of injury to all 27 bus occupants, making this a mass casualty incident. The tour bus was northbound on Highway 89/287 en route to West Yellowstone, Montana, through the south entrance of Yellowstone National Park when the accident occurred. Most patients were treated and released from the Jackson hospital by 9 p.m. Five of the more seriously injured passengers were kept for overnight observation and additional medical care. The two patients flown to Eastern Idaho Medical Center were listed in fair condition as of Friday morning. The extensive coordination and partnerships between Grand Teton National Park rangers, EMS providers and other park personnel together with Jackson Hole Fire/EMS providers, Grand Teton Lodge Company employees, Yellowstone National Park rangers, Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers, and the extremely organized and experienced emergency room staff at the St. John's Medical Center helped to make this mass casualty incident progress efficiently and with success. [Jackie Skaggs, Public Affairs Officer] Sequoia-Kings Canyon NPs Missing Hiker Found In Kings Canyon On July 3rd, a 33-year-old Clovis, California, man hiked from Florence Lake into the northern part of Kings Canyon National Park with the intent to climb Mt. Goddard. He was expected to return to his vehicle on July 7th, but by July 9th had not returned home. Joint search operations were begun on July 9th with Fresno County Sheriff's Office. On July 10th, search operations intensified, with six NPS
hasty teams, the parks' contract Type 3 helicopter, Yosemite NP's Type 2
helicopter, and an NPS liaison assigned to Fresno County. Searchers reached the summit of Mount Goddard (elevation 13,558) and the peak register was found to have an entry left by the missing man on July 5th. On the evening of July 10th, the final team insertion took place around sunset near Davis Lake (elevation of 11,058), about two miles north of Mt. Goddard. As the helicopter was on final approach to the landing zone, the man was seen lying on the ground approximately fifty yards away. The search team contacted him and found he had significant trauma to his lower extremities. He said that he had been injured five days earlier while descending Mt. Goddard, had run out of food, and ultimately crawled toward Davis Lake. As sunset approached, potentially grounding the helicopter, the man was rapidly bandaged and carried to the helicopter by hand. He was flown back to the park helibase, where he was transferred to a Life Flight helicopter for transport to a local hospital. [Tom Parrack, Incident Commander] 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): Alaska Regional Office - The popular bearcams along the Brooks River and falls in Katmai National Park are back for the summer. Eight webcams along or near the Brooks River stream live HD footage revealing the drama of the annual sockeye salmon migration and the dozens of brown bears fishing for them. Glacier Bay NP&P - On June 25th, Glacier Bay National Park celebrated the grand opening of an exhibit featuring “Snow,” the largest humpback whale skeleton exhibit in the United States. Office of Communications - Director Jarvis will host his next monthly webchat at 2 p.m. EDT on Thursday, July 24th. This webchat will focus on what the NPS is doing to address climate change in the parks. Intermountain Region - Portions of the Service's historic Old Santa Fe Trail Building, a Civilian Conservation Corps landmark that turned 75 on July 1st, got a welcome hands-on maintenance visit this spring from the HOPE program. Office of Legislative and Congressional Affairs - This week's update on past and upcoming hearings, newly introduced bills, and the status of legislation of interest to the Service. This report covers activities in Congress for the week ending July 11th. NPS Alumni - Rex L. Wilson, 87, retired career NPS archeologist and former chief of the Service's Interagency Archaeological Services Division, passed away on April 7th in Woodbridge, Virginia. 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). --- ### --- |