NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

MORNING REPORT

Thursday, February 25, 2010

INCIDENTS

Buffalo NR

Park Staff Join In Recovery Of Hiker's Body

Last weekend, members of BUFFSAR, the park's search and rescue team, assisted the Newton County Sheriff's Office and Ozark National Forest with the search for and recovery of the body of a man who'd fallen from a cliff in a forest area adjacent to the park. D.H., 54, of Springdale, Arkansas, fell from a high cliff in the Magnolia Falls are of the forest's portion of the Upper Buffalo Wilderness, part of which is managed by the NPS. D.H. had left his home sometime on Saturday morning, advising his family that he was going to be hiking and taking photographs in the area and would return by 6 p.m. His wife called at 8 p.m. and reported him overdue, advising that he might be in the Boxley Valley area of the park's Upper Buffalo District and also providing coordinates of where he was going that day. Ranger Melissa Lamm checked all Boxley Valley trailheads, but was unable to locate D.H.'s vehicle. At the Forest Service's request, Lamm followed the coordinates to a USFS trailhead just outside the park and located the vehicle, which had had its back window broken out. Lamm notified the USFS and the sheriff's office, both of which asked that she remain on scene with the vehicle until they could send their own personnel. Lamm, a USFS LEO, and a county deputy conducted a hasty search of the area until 1 a.m., but were unable to locate D.H. and decided that the terrain was too dangerous to continue searching at night. Additional searchers, including five NPS rangers and one BUFFSAR volunteer, joined the search the following morning and searched a rugged, narrow canyon punctuated by three high waterfalls, whose vertical walls were shrouded in curtains of ice. Around mid-morning, searchers found D.H.'s body face-down in a creek pool at the base of a 70-foot cliff and confirmed that he'd died in the fall. Personnel recovered the body by conducting a grueling carryout operation that involved moving the litter up steep, boulder-strewn slopes while crawling on their hands and knees, two short evolutions of rope-assisted litter raises, and, finally, a wheeled-litter carryout through a heavily vegetated, overgrown trail - all while being subjected to a drenching rain for the entirety of the operation. This incident provided an opportunity for BUFFSAR to work side by side with members of neighboring SAR organizations, including the sheriff's office, the USFS, and Krooked Kreek Volunteer Fire Department, forging strong relationships with them. Throughout this extremely difficult incident, all members conducted themselves in a highly professional manner under very emotional circumstances. The sheriff's office is investigating. [Kevin Moses, Acting Chief Ranger]

OTHER NEWS

The following stories are among those in today's edition of InsideNPS:

Delaware Water Gap NRA - A team of arborists and trainees from throughout the National Park Service came to the park during the second week of February to prune several historic apple orchards. Reestablishing and maintaining historic fruit trees throughout the NPS represents an historic milestone in the preservation of the cultural heritage of the United States.

Canaveral NS - On Saturday, February 6th, Canaveral National Seashore played host to the inaugural “Run with the Rangers” event. Photo.

Uniform Program -

The National Park Service is currently featured in Made to Measure magazine, a uniform magazine geared exclusively to the uniform and career apparel industry.

Pacific West Region -

Craig Kenkel has been selected as the superintendent of San Francisco Maritime National Historic Site. Kenkel, currently acting deputy superintendent at Golden Gate National Recreation Area, will assume his duties in May.

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/

NPS serious incident submission standards can be found at the following web site: HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/notify" http://inside.nps.gov/notify

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Prepared by the Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services, Washington Office, with the support of the Office of the Chief Information Officer. Edited by Bill Halainen ( HYPERLINK "mailto:Bill_Halainen@nps.gov" Bill_Halainen@nps.gov).

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