A father and daughter hiking in triple-digit heat in a remote Utah national park died after leaving a panicked text message for 911 saying they were lost and out of water, according to the police.
Two hikers were found dead in Canyonlands National Park near the town of Moab on Friday evening. They were recognized by the San Juan County, Utah, Sheriff’s Office on Monday as Albino Herrera Espinoza, 52, and his daughter Beatriz Herrera, 23. Both were from Green Bay, Wisconsin.
The Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department said that three more walkers were found sick from the heat in Snow Canyon State Park in southwest Utah the next day. One of them was a 30-year-old woman who had died.
The National Park Service (NPS) told the Utah Department of Public Safety that the walkers had sent 911 text messages asking for help, which is when the search for Herera Espinoza and his daughter began. The search began at 6 p.m. local time on Friday.
A report from the NPS said that the walkers were a father and daughter who got lost while on the Syncline Loop Trail, according to a statement from the sheriff’s office released Monday. “Dispatch informed NPS of emergency 911 texts from the hikers, reporting that they were lost and out of water.”
Reports say that the father and daughter sent their frantic texts to 911 while the temperature in the area was over 100 degrees.
Police say Herrera Espinoza and his daughter were hiking in an area close to the Island in the Sky Rock in the park. In their words, the NPS calls the Syncline Loop Trail “the most challenging trail in the Island in the Sky district.”
The National Park Service website says, “Most park rescues happen on this trail.” It also warns that the 8-mile loop trail has steep switchbacks, boulder fields, and a 1,500-foot elevation difference.
The father and daughter were found dead in the park in an area called the Upheaval Dome, according to the sheriff’s office.
“Due to the remote area and rugged terrain, San Juan County Sheriff’s Office coordinated with the Department of Public Safety helicopter team to extract the decedents in the early morning hours of July 13,” the sheriff’s office said.
The bodies were sent to the state’s Office of the Medical Examiner to be looked at.
“Temperatures will stay high this summer, so park visitors are encouraged to bring and drink lots of water, and they should avoid doing anything too strenuous during the middle of the day,” the NPS said in a statement made Saturday about the deaths.
The Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department said in a statement that on Saturday, their officers were called to Snow Canyon State Park near St. George, Utah because two people were “suffering from a heat-related incident.” According to a statement from the public safety department, while first rescuers were treating the hikers, a bystander told them about an unconscious hiker nearby.
“The person was identified as a woman in her 30s.” “First responders found the person, and it was determined that the person had died,” the statement said.
As the U.S. continued its record heat wave on Tuesday, at least 31 people have died in the West this July because of the heat, according to a list of reports from law enforcement agencies put together by ABC News.
The Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office in Santa Clara County, California, said that 18 people died in the county in the first 10 days of July because of the heat. There were several days in July when the temperature in the county, including its biggest city, San Jose, rose to or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
In another part of California, a bicyclist died on July 6 from being out in the heat in Death Valley National Park, where it reached 127 degrees. A 58-year-old guy died of heatstroke in Sacramento on July 6 when the temperature hit 113 degrees.
In other parts of the West, six deaths thought to be related to the heart were reported in July in Oregon and three in Arizona. The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office says that a 4-month-old had a heat-related emergency while on a boating trip in Lake Havasu when the temperature reached 120 degrees. The Phoenix Police Department says that on July 2, a 10-year-old boy got sick while hiking with his family in the South Mountain Park and Preserve in Phoenix and died.
Police said that a 50-year-old climber who was found unconscious in the Grand Canyon on July 7 had died. In June, two more people died at the Grand Canyon because of the heat.
