Natural Bridges |  |
The following Incident Reports were extracted from the NPS Morning Reports/Coalition Reports from 1989-2025. They are not a complete record of all incidents which occurred in this park during this timeframe. INCIDENTS | |
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Friday, October 8, 1993 Around 2:30 a.m. on October 2nd, C.N., a volunteer living in park housing, awoke to find an intruder in his residence. The man - later identified as E.M., a 57-year-old homeless male from Flagstaff - was talking loudly and incoherently, but was unarmed. C.N. ran to a nearby residence and awakened the seasonal ranger living there; he took E.M. into custody and detained him until a San Juan county deputy arrived and arrested E.M. for criminal trespass. Deputies originally though that E.M. was driving a stolen car, but subsequently discovered that he'd found the vehicle, which had been abandoned on the roadside near Flagstaff, and had gotten a locksmith to make him a key by convincing him that the car was his. Since the vehicle hadn't been registered for a year and wasn't reported as stolen, E.M. was not charged with vehicle theft. E.M. spent four days in jail and was released October 6th after a psychiatric evaluation. E.M. has a history of mental illness, and may still be in the southeast Utah area. [Jim Dougan, CR, NABR, 10/7]
At 7:30 p.m. on October 17th, a search was begun for R.S., a 60- year-old German citizen, who was overdue from a hike. Seventeen searchers from the park, San Juan county and Utah state parks worked through the night in rugged terrain, rain and temperatures in the low 30s to find R.S., who was dressed only in light cotton clothing. At 3:30 a.m., she was found in White Canyon, about nine miles from the point where she was supposed to meet her party and six miles from where she'd left the marked trail. Shulze was cold but otherwise in good condition and was able to hike out with searchers at daybreak. [Jim Ireland, NABR, 10/19]
The park's visitor center was burglarized around 8 p.m. on the evening of October 14th. Thieves broke into a donation box and took about $400, and stole about $375 worth of books from the cooperating association. A visitor saw two men in the visitor center at the time of the burglary, but believed they were cleaning up (no pun intended). One suspect was described as a white male in his 20s, 5'6" to 5'8" tall, between 160 and 170 pounds, dark hair tied in a ponytail, and wearing a light blue denim jacket, blue jeans and a dark baseball cap. The second suspect was also a white male in his 20s, 5'10" to 6'0" tall, from 160 to 170 pounds, also wearing jeans and a blue jacket. The suspects are believed to be driving a metallic blue van, possibly a late model. No forced entry to the visitor center was apparent. [Jim Dougan, CR, NABR, 10/17]
Late on the morning of Thursday, May 16th, a female SCA out for a walk in the park was approached by two men who were standing near their vehicle at a pulloff at the park's entrance. One of the men accosted her, made a vulgar comment which implied that he intended a sexual assault, then reached to grab her, tearing the bottom of her shirt. She was able to escape into the woods. Rangers Dougan, Ireland and Nickel began a search for the vehicle in conjunction with county deputies, but without luck. The vehicle is described as a white, late-model, short-bed pickup bearing white license plates. One suspect is a white male in his early 40s, 6'1", 250 pounds, wearing a tight blue t-shirt, jeans and a dirty brown cowboy hat; the other is a white male in his 30s, 5'10", 175 pounds, with sandy blond, collar-length hair and a full moustache. [Jim Dougan, CR, NABR]
A single-vehicle rollover accident occurred a mile west of the entry road to the park on Sunday, June 9th. Rangers Dougan and Nickel responded, stabilized the injured, and requested an Air Life helicopter to medevac two of the five injured occupants. The helicopter arrived and loaded up, but was unable to take off due to an engine malfunction. A passing motorist offered to help. The pilot said that he'd appreciate the assistance, but only if the motorist was a helicopter mechanic. It turned out that he was and that he even had the necessary part in his motorhome. He fixed the helicopter, allowing it to depart and transport the injured to a hospital. [Jim Dougan, CR, NABR]
On the evening of August 13th, interpretive ranger Shawn Duffy went down to the BLM ranger station at Kane Gulch, about ten miles south of the park. When he arrived, he found no one at the station, then noticed smoke emanating from the mobile home. Duffy did not have access to water, so called park rangers Jim Dougan and Travis Poulson. They were first on scene and employed carbon dioxide, dry chemicals and water to contain and extinguish the blaze. Damage was kept to a minimum and the structure was saved. [Travis Poulson, ACR, NABR]
On September 14th, the San Juan county sheriff's office asked the NPS for assistance in a search for a party of 13 people who'd been caught in a flash flood in White Canyon just downstream from Natural Bridges. The group had started a hike down a slot canyon section of White Canyon known as the Black Hole. Heavy rains caused the stream to rise rapidly and made it difficult for group members to cross it and reach the only available escape route. Six of them were able to cross, but the seventh - 16-year-old T.H. - lost her footing and was swept away. The six who'd gotten across managed to scramble up the side of the 600 foot canyon wall and find their way overland about six miles to the highway. They eventually reached Hite Marina at Glen Canyon and notified the sheriff's office. Four rangers and maintenance personnel from Natural Bridges and four rangers from Glen Canyon joined about 30 deputies and SAR volunteers in a night search for T.H. and the remaining six members of the group. Despite the presence of a state police helicopter with night vision equipment and search lights, no sign of the hikers was found, and the search was suspended at 3 a.m. As the search resumed the following morning, the six hikers who'd been stranded in the canyon emerged, having crossed the stream when flood waters subsided. Members of the group were becoming hypothermic by that time. The search for T.H. continued throughout the day, but was unsuccessful until three private individuals with wet suits and other gear who'd come to hike the Black Hole volunteered to search the slot canyon. T.H.'s body was found suspended from a piece of drift about 30 feet above the existing stream level. The body was recovered the following day after a difficult extrication effort. [Steve Chaney, NABR]
C.C., 48, of Monticello, Utah, fell to her death while sightseeing in the park with her husband on the afternoon of February 17th. The C.C.s were near the top of the Sipapu Bridge trail when Mrs. C.C. left the trail to take a photo near the edge of a 70-foot cliff. According to Mr. C.C., she crouched with her camera to take a picture; he looked away for a moment, and was gone when he turned back. He then picked his way through dense brush on a steep, snow-covered slope to reach his wife, who showed no signs of life. Responding rangers Dougan and Poulson soon reached the victim and determined that she'd died from her injuries. The county sheriff's department and rescue squad assisted in the complicated body retrieval, which was undertaken after dark. [Jim Dougan, CR, GRSM, 2/18]
R.S., a 27-year-old native of Italy, was reported missing to the San Juan County sheriff's department on October 1st when he failed to return to Iowa State University, where he was a graduate student. R.S.'s rental car was found in the park later that morning. Rangers and members of the sheriff's SAR team began a search of the area, but failed to find him. A helicopter was brought in yesterday morning, and R.S.'s body was found on a rock ledge not visible from the canyon below. It appears that he died instantly from a head injury sustained in a fall. [Jim Dougan, CR, NABR, 10/2]
On the afternoon of September 12, a park visitor reported having seen "two elderly hikers stuck in a flashflood" at the bottom of White Canyon. They were last seen "standing chest deep" in a swift current in the vicinity of Sipapu Bridge. The park had received over one inch of precipitation since 8 a.m. that morning and was experiencing heavy monsoon storm cells and lightening strikes at the time of the report. A rescue team led by chief ranger Ralph Jones entered White Canyon approximately ten minutes later, while maintenance chief Larry Turk remained on the canyon rim in order to maintain line-of-sight radio communications. Flood conditions forced Jones' team to traverse high-angle rock above the riverbed while searching for the hikers. Jones located the pair - two German nationals in their early 60's - on the opposite side of the river, approximately a quarter mile downstream from Sipapu Bridge. They were wet and cold, but otherwise in fair condition. Rangers were able to extricate the husband by fording floodwaters and roping up for the climb out of White Canyon. His wife was much weaker, however, and had to ford the river three times in order to reach easier terrain upstream. When she began having trouble negotiating wet slickrock with her footwear, a park rescuer swapped out her own hiking boots for the woman's tennis shoes. After safely returning to the Sipapu Bridge parking lot, the two non-English speaking visitors profusely thanked their rescuers with hugs and handshakes. Park visitors are cautioned to avoid trails linking the canyons' bridges during periods of precipitation. Due to language barriers, the couple had missed both verbal and signed information to that effect. The incident has prompted staff to evaluate additional strategies for improving cross-cultural communication. [Submitted by Greg Dudgeon, Superintendent, Natural Bridges NM] | |