NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
MORNING REPORT
Friday, July 26, 2013
INCIDENTS
Grand Teton NP
Rangers Rescue Injured Off-Trail Hiker
Five rangers conducted one of the more physically taxing ground-based rescues in the last several years during the afternoon and evening of Monday, July 22nd.
A 61-year-old Colorado woman sustained an injury somewhere below the very steep talus slope that runs from Lake Taminah to the bottom of Shosoko Falls. Dispatch was notified of the injured hiker by cell phone around 5 p.m. The woman tried to continue her descent, but her injury made it too challenging for her to bear weight.
Avalanche Canyon has some of the most difficult terrain of any of the mountain canyons in the park. There is no maintained trail through the canyon, so hikers have to “bushwhack” their way through dense marsh and vegetation in the lower part of the canyon. Higher in the canyon, hikers must scramble up long sections of steep scree and boulder fields.
Due to the challenges of the terrain, rangers were unable to use standard rescue devices such as a wheeled litter to carry the woman out of Avalanche Canyon. Instead, rescuers traded off physically caring her on their backs for short segments, slowly making their way down the canyon. Once they reached the maintained trail near Taggart Lake, rangers placed her in a wheeled litter to carry her the last two miles to the trailhead.
Both of the Teton interagency contact helicopters were out of the valley on fire assignments and unavailable. If the incident had occurred earlier in the day or if Nielsen's injuries had been life threatening, rangers would have likely sought assistance from a short-haul capable helicopter.
This was the park's 17th major search and rescue operation this year.
[Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles, Public Affairs Specialist]
Grand Canyon NP
River Guide Injured By Lightning Strike
Park dispatch received a report of a river guide requiring medical attention due to injuries associated with a lightning strike just after 9 p.m. on the evening of July 21st.
The guide, who worked for Arizona Raft Adventures, was with a group camped along the river. He was airlifted by an Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter and flown to the University Medical Center in Las Vegas for treatment.
[Public Affairs Office]
St. Croix NSR
Park Staff Assist In Major Search For Missing Child
On the evening of Tuesday, July 16th, the Polk County Sheriff's Department received a report that a two-year-old boy was missing from his home in rural Centuria.
Due to high media coverage, over 2,000 volunteers joined in the ensuing search, including a number of park employees. Late on Wednesday afternoon, the sheriff's department requested NPS assistance in providing trained search team leaders to help manage the incident.
The child's body was found late Wednesday evening. Peer support counseling has been made available to staff members involved in the incident.
[Scott Carrigan, Acting Chief Ranger]
Chattahoochee River NRA
Rangers In Swiftwater Rescue Course Rescue Several Boaters
While participating in a 40-hour swiftwater rescue technician certification training course on the Chattahoochee River on Friday, July 12th, rangers Jay Kolodzinski and James Psillis, supervisory ranger Sean Perchalski, and members of two local fire departments performed four rescues involving seven visitors.
Due to heavy rains over the last several weeks, the training was conducted in extreme conditions with water flow rates of up to 10,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) on a river where normal flow rates hover around 1,200 cfs. Water temperatures around 50 degrees Fahrenheit also made hypothermia a risk.
On Friday, the fifth and final day of the training, course participants were scheduled to perform a search and rescue exercise. As the exercise got underway, they encountered several visitors whose canoes and kayaks had overturned and been swept away in the current. In cooperation with their classmates, the three Chattahoochee River NRA rangers rescued all seven visitors before regrouping to successfully complete a staged night exercise utilizing the incident command system and operational leadership.
A total of sixteen participants completed the swiftwater rescue training course, practicing rescue techniques and tactics on both the Chattahoochee River and the Amicalola River in north Georgia.
[Sean Perchalski, Supervisory Park 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/):
Mount Rainier NP - Neighbors, partners and national park staff gathered on July 6th at Mount Rainier National Park for the grand opening of the Carbon River Ranger Station. The event marked a major milestone for new park lands recently acquired in the northwest corner of the park.
New River Gorge NR - The National Scout Jamboree, which took place adjacent to the park, came to a conclusion this week. A Type 3 IMT managed event operations, which involved a total of 228 NPS staff, volunteers and partners.
Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services - An immediate stand down of the scientific diving exemption by National Park Service divers has been ordered.
Blue Ridge Parkway - A 20-mile-long section of the Blue Ridge Parkway has been closed since July 12th due to a fill slope failure just north of the Tanbark Ridge Tunnel near Asheville, North Carolina.
Commercial Services - Jeannie Short, an accountant with the Commercial Services Program in Denver, will retire on July 31st after 25 years with the National Park Service.
Servicewide Training Calendar - Added to this week's calendar are the following - a webinar on communications lessons learned from the 2009 Big Meadows Fire at Yosemite and a seminar on “organizational, officer and career survival” in Mississippi.
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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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