NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
MORNING REPORT
Friday, July 12, 2013
INCIDENTS
Grand Teton NP
Injured Paraglider Rescued From Death Canyon
A local paraglider sustained serious injuries in a forced landing in Death Canyon on Wednesday afternoon.
R.B., 29, an expert paraglider, launched from Teton Village with a companion with intent of gliding north over the Teton Range before returning to land at Teton Village. While she was over Death Canyon, R.B. lost her thermal lift, causing a forced descent to the canyon floor. Hikers who witnessed her descent assisted R.B. in moving her paraglider and other gear down the canyon trail, where she subsequently met park rangers responding to the scene.
Rangers and a Teton interagency contract helicopter flew to a landing zone about a half mile above R.B.'s location. They provided emergency medical care and prepared her for a short-haul evacuation from the canyon to the valley floor. With a ranger attending, R.B. was short-hauled in a litter to a landing zone at the historic White Grass Ranch, where she was met by a park ambulance and transported to St. John's Medical Center in Jackson.
[Jackie Skaggs, Public Affairs Officer]
Zion NP
Three Canyoneers Rescued From Heaps Canyon
On Monday, July 8th, rangers and helitack crew members completed three short-haul evolutions to rescue an overdue party of three canyoneers from Heaps Canyon, one of the most difficult canyons to navigate within Zion.
The three men had obtained a day permit for Saturday, July 6th, but started their trip the prior evening. The family reported them overdue early Sunday morning and rangers began to monitor the canyon exit. Due to thunderstorms on Sunday afternoon, rangers were unable to fly a reconnaissance flight, but began to plan for a search on Monday morning.
During one of the search flights on Monday, rangers spotted the trio on a bench above Heaps Canyon. They later reported that they'd reached a “dead end” in the canyon early on Saturday afternoon, not recognizing that conditions change dramatically from year to year and that they were in fact still in Heaps Canyon and potentially in a “keeper pothole.” The permit holder had been through Heaps Canyon in 2011, a relatively wet year.
The three men spent most of Sunday at this 30-foot-tall obstacle before convincing themselves they were in the wrong drainage. On Monday morning, they climbed 100 feet up to a bench above Heaps Canyon to await rescue. Ranger/medic Tim Hearns was inserted by short haul to assess injuries and extract the canyoneers one by one.
This past week was one of hottest ever recorded in Zion, with seven days in a row above 111 degrees.
[Cindy Purcell, Chief Ranger]
Colorado NM
Homicide Victim's Body Found In Park
Four visitors who'd stopped just inside the park's west entrance to take photographs early on the afternoon of July 2nd spotted a body about ten feet from the road.
The victim was subsequently identified as a 49-year-old Grand Junction woman, and the coroner ruled the death a homicide. A suspect was identified and taken into custody. The killing is being jointly investigated by the park and the Mesa County Sheriff's Office.
There is no evidence the crime occurred in the monument and the body was most likely dumped in the area where it was found.
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[Mark Davison, Chief Ranger]
OTHER NEWS
The following stories are among those in today's edition of InsideNPS. To see the full text, including images, NPS employees should go to the InsideNPS home page ( HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index). Non-NPS employees can see most of them on the NPS Digest page ( HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/):
Statue of Liberty NM - Eight months after Hurricane Sandy flooded most of Liberty Island, the Statue of Liberty reopened to the public in time to celebrate Independence Day.
Channel Islands NP - Channel Islands National Park volunteer Joe Wysocki, 65, died following an accident at Anacapa Island on Wednesday afternoon.
Bandelier NM - Fifteen people took their citizenship oaths in the park's Frijoles Canyon on the Fourth of July. This second annual ceremony was hosted by the park in partnership with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Office of Communications - The NPS has awarded more than $1.3 million in grants to help preserve and interpret the sites where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans - two-thirds of them U.S. citizens - were imprisoned during World War II.
Natchez Trace Parkway - Sandy Kavanaugh, a supervisory interpretive ranger at Natchez Trace Parkway, retired from the National Park Service on Wednesday, July 3rd.
Upcoming Training Calendar - Added to this week's calendar is a course on effective interpretation of archeological and cultural heritage resources at Grand Canyon this fall.
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The Morning Report is a publication of the Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services, Washington Office, 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).
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