NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
MORNING REPORT
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
INCIDENTS
Glen Canyon NRA
Rangers Carry Out Multiple Rescues During Severe Storm
Rangers made three nearly simultaneous rescues on Lake Powell on Memorial Day after an unusually powerful thunderstorm struck Bullfrog Bay area in late afternoon with wind speeds of 50 to 60 miles per hour. At 4 p.m., Halls Crossing rangers Brian Yetter, Eric Herndon, and G. M. Yancey were notified of a woman with spinal injuries within the Halls Crossing buoy field. While responding to that call, they overheard a vessel with four women on board calling “Mayday” via marine band radio from buoy 101, reporting that they were out of gas and sinking. Yetter diverted the NPS vessel and responded immediately, During the ten minute trip to that buoy, the 25-foot Boston Whaler took large waves over its cabin. The sinking vessel was found within a 50-foot-wide cove bounded by 100-yard-high walls. Yetter was able to come alongside the 25-foot cabin boat while Herndon and Yancey secured the vessels and helped the women into the park boat as the two vessels continually crashed into each other. Following the rescue, the rangers determined that the park boat had taken on large amounts of water and decided to beach it at a safe location and wait out the storm. When the weather abated, a Coast Guard Auxiliary unit detailed to Lake Powell for holiday operations was able to pickup the women and transport them to Bullfrog Marina. While this rescue was underway, Bullfrog rangers Carmen Barnard and Moses Rinck launched a second park vessel to support Yetter and his crew. While responding to buoy 101, Barnard and Rinck spotted a partially sunken ski boat with two people aboard and rescued them just as the ski boat went under. One of the two people was later treated for hypothermia. Following the wind event, Yetter and Herndon returned to the woman with the possible spinal injury. Following a thorough evaluation, she was transferred to the park's fireboat, captained by supervisory ranger Steve Luckesen, a park medic, and transported to the Bullfrog clinic, where she was later evacuated by air. Patrols both up and down the lake revealed no additional storm victims. [Max King]
North Cascades NP
Rangers Rescue Mountaineer Injured In Tumbling Fall
On Saturday, May 23rd, a commercially-guided party of three mountaineers took a tumbling fall down Mount Shuksan's summit pyramid while roped together. The trio had reached the summit and were descending when the accident occurred. The guide had belayed his two clients individually down the first pitches of steep snow, then descended himself. As he was doing so, he fell and, unable to arrest his fall, pulled the other two with him for about 400 feet. Luckily, there was only one significant injury - one of the clients injured an ankle and was unable to continue. Climbing rangers on patrol lower on the mountain were picked up by the park's on-call SAR helicopter, an MD 500 from HiLine Helicopters, and flown to the accident site. The rangers were able to carry the injured climber across a section of the Sulphide Glacier, then fly her off the mountain. She was transported to a Bellingham, Washington, hospital for evaluation. [Kelly Bush, Wilderness District Ranger]
Blue Ridge Parkway
Suicide Victim Discovered By Passersby
On Monday, May 25th, two people test driving a vehicle on the parkway discovered a car in the Walnut Cove overlook with the front driver's side window shattered. They checked the car, thinking that the window had been broken out in a car larceny, and found the body of a woman with a single gunshot wound to her head and a loaded .45 caliber handgun in her lap. Rangers responded and investigated the incident with the assistance of Buncombe County Sheriffs Office deputies. The 25-year-old woman, who was from Chandler, North Carolina, had been despondent about a hit and run accident she was involved in the previous night. Investigators concluded that the death was a suicide. [Jay Shields, Park Ranger]
OTHER NEWS
The following stories are among those in today's edition of InsideNPS:
Cape Hatteras NS - Park visitors and community neighbors were recently given a rare treat - watching two loggerhead turtles and a green turtle return home to the sea. They'd spent the last few months in rehabilitation facilities, recovering from coldwater stunning events.
HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=Announcements&id=7752" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=Announcements&id=7752
WASO Budget - WASO Budget is pleased to announce the release of the National Park Service's FY 2008 Scorecard. The NPS Scorecard was developed to improve the Service's ability to justify and defend funding priorities for park operating programs critical to competing successfully in a tight federal budget environment.
HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=viewnpsnewsarticle&type=Announcements&id=7755" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=viewnpsnewsarticle&type=Announcements&id=7755
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Submission standards for the Morning Report can be found at the following web site:
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 support of the Office of the Chief Information Officer and Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Edited by Bill Halainen ( HYPERLINK "mailto:Bill_Halainen@nps.gov" Bill_Halainen@nps.gov).
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Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
691 Scenic View Dr.
PO Box 1507
Page, AZ 86040-1507
CONTACT: Brian Sweatland
928-608-6342
National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 29, 2009 09-20
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