NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

MORNING REPORT

Friday, April 10, 2015

INCIDENTS

Great Smoky Mountains NP

Rangers Rescue Seriously Injured Hiker

On the afternoon of March 29th, rangers rescued a hiker who had taken a fall onto a pile of rocks a little over two-and-a-half miles from the Ramsey Cascades Trailhead.

The hiker had sustained chest trauma and required evacuation by litter carryout from the backcountry over very rough terrain. The challenge of patient care increased when his airway became compromised subsequent to the chest injury.

In addition to the deterioration of his condition, the extrication from the backcountry required the park's technical SAR team to construct a Tyrolean traverse to get the patient safely across a river. The SAR operation took a total of seven hours from the time of injury to the waiting ambulance at the trailhead.

The injured hiker was flown by helicopter to the University of Tennessee Medical Center and immediately admitted to the OR. Prior to departing the landing zone, ambulance personnel and flight medics had to perform a surgical HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricothyrotomy" cricothyratomy to secure the airway. The patient is expected to make a full recovery.

Ranger Brad Griest was the incident commander.

[Steve Kloster, Tennessee District Ranger]

OTHER NEWS

The following stories are among those in today's webpage editions of InsideNPS (available to NPS employees only) and the Morning Report (available to all readers):

Tumacacori NHP - Eleven NPS employees representing six parks, five states, and two NPS regions joined over 100 Mexican colleagues for a workshop at the Taller Internacional de Conservaci—n y Restauraci—n de Arquitectura de Tierra in Alamos, Mexico, over a week in late March.

Blue Ridge Parkway - Larry Greene, 64, a maintenance worker for Blue Ridge Parkway since 1989, succumbed to a heart attack while on duty on Wednesday, April 8th.

Fire Island NS - The National Park Service Arborist Incident Response (AIR) team began working to suppress southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis) infestations at Fire Island National Seashore this week.

Intermountain Region - Charles Strickfaden, a 30-year veteran of the NPS, has been named interim superintendent of the newly established Valles Caldera National Preserve in northern New Mexico.

Upcoming Training Calendar - The following have been added to this week's calendar - the application deadline for next fall's Roger Kennedy Fellowship Program and a wood identification workshop at NCPTT.

To see the full text of these stories, readers should go to one or the other of the following sites:

NPS employees - HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index

Non-NPS employees - HYPERLINK "http://www.nps.gov/morningreport/" http://www.nps.gov/morningreport/

The Morning Report is 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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