NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
MORNING REPORT
Monday, November 23, 2009
INCIDENTS
Big Cypress NP
Lost Hunter Found After Five-Day Search
On the afternoon of November 16th, J.M., a hunter with no local experience, embarked on a hunt from a privately-owned inholding. When he failed to return by dark, his friends began looking for him. After about an hour, they heard a shot that they presumed J.M. had fired and fired shots in reply. Two more shots were subsequently heard, apparently further away each time. J.M.'s companions then placed a 911 call that was forwarded to the park. A search was begun, managed under ICS, and other agencies were brought in. Over the next few days, an intensive ground and air search took place that involved about 60 people. Ground searchers utilized grid searches, tactical tracking, blood hounds, cadaver dogs, and air scent dogs. Air searches were conducted and included FLIR/night vision during night operations (FLIR - forward-looking infrared - proved ineffective in this area due to the thick vegetative cover and ground water conditions). Rangers were assigned to teams as available to provide local knowledge. On the morning of November 20th, a bloodhound team found J.M. in very thick, swampy underbrush, making it necessary for them to crawl the last part of their approach to his location. He was alive and vocal and reported a hurt knee and ankle. J.M. was clad only in a tank top and long johns, having lost his shotgun and camouflage hunting clothes. He was surprised to learn it was Friday, and said he thought it was only Tuesday. He survived in part by drinking swamp water and reported catching a catfish by hand and eating it. J.M. was walked/carried overland through the swamp to a clearing where he was airlifted by a Collier County Sheriff's Office helicopter to the incident command post. He was then airlifted by the Collier County EMS helicopter to Physicians Regional Medical Center in Naples, Florida, where he remains in stable condition, reunited with his family. [Ed Clark, Chief Ranger]
Natchez Trace Parkway
Apparent Suicide Victim Found In Gas-Filled Car
On the morning of Wednesday, November 18th, park dispatch received a call from an employee who reported a possibly unresponsive person in a car parked at Garrison Creek. Rangers from the Liepers Ford District arrived on scene and found a 55-year-old woman lying in her car, covered with a blanket. Notes were visible in the car warning of a deadly gas. The Franklin County hazmat team responded and retrieved the woman from her vehicle. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Other notes inside the car suggested that she may have been suicidal. The chemical containers found in the vehicle were a toilet bowl cleaner and a generic fungicide. The exact composition of the chemicals has not been confirmed. The Tennessee State Medical Examiner's Office and the Williamson County Sheriff Office are conducting an investigation into the cause of death. [Calvin T. Farmer, Supervisory Park Ranger]
Golden Gate NRA
Body Of Missing Man Found In Surf Below Slide Ranch
On the evening of Sunday, November 15th, park communications put out a “be on the lookout” message for a missing endangered person to rangers and U.S. Park Police officers. While conducting a patrol of the northern areas of the park, rangers Maya Seraphin and Sam Eddy found the missing 30-year-old man's parked and unoccupied vehicle in the parking lot at Slide Ranch. The rangers notified the on-duty supervisor, Pat Norton, who mobilized additional park staff to conduct a hasty search along the trails in that area. A California Highway Patrol helicopter was dispatched to the area and searched the shoreline with negative results. NPS staff met with the family of the missing person to gain additional information. The search was suspended around 1 a.m., but resumed the next morning with the assistance of a Marin County SAR team. As the team was assembling, the man's father and brother reported that they'd found him lying in the surf below the Slide Ranch compound. Park staff and lifeguards utilized inflatable watercraft to assist with the transport of his body to Stinson Beach. The incident is being investigated by Park Police detectives and the Marin County Medical Examiner's Office. [Kim Coast, Operations Supervisor]
OTHER NEWS
The following stories are among those in today's edition of InsideNPS:
Wind Cave NP - Twenty-three bison from Wind Cave National Park will soon be roaming the prairie of their new home in northern Mexico. The bison recently arrived at the El Uno Ecological Reserve in Chihuahua as part of a cooperative effort to restore bison to their historical range in Mexico.
Legislative and Congressional Affairs - This week's update on past and upcoming hearings and the status of legislation pertinent to the National Park Service.
Yosemite NP - Katariina Tuovinen, chief of administration at Yosemite, has been selected from a broad national pool of applicants to be a member of the 2010 fellowship class of the American Democracy Institute's (ADI) Women's Leadership Program.
To see these and other stories posted on InsideNPS (or NPS Digest, its public version), click on one or the other of the following links (please note that not all stories in the former appear in the latter): NPS employees: HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index ; non-NPS employees: HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/
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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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