A tourist who lost his flip-flops while walking in Death Valley’s sand dunes had to be airlifted to a hospital because of burns to his feet.
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Rangers were called to Mesquite Flat on Saturday, July 20, by companions of the 42-year-old Belgian man. He had been unable to walk and was carried to the trailhead by park visitors.
The air temperature at the time was around 123 degrees, and the sand would have been hotter, a news release from the national park said.
Because of the heat, which reduces rotor lift, a medical helicopter could not land in Death Valley. The man was taken to 3,000 feet elevation, where the lower temperature — 109 — allowed the helicopter to land.
He was taken to a Las Vegas hospital with what the park report described as full thickness, or third-degree, burns to his feet.
Because of the language issue, rangers weren’t able to determine how the man ended up barefoot, the park report said.
Two days earlier, on July 18, the same higher-elevation helicopter landing site had to be used for a woman who collapsed while hiking the Badlands Loop, the park reported.
Her companion told rangers they set out on the 2½-mile loop at 9:30 a.m., when the temperature was around 110. A wrong turn extended their hike, he said, and the woman was unable to keep walking. He returned alone to the Zabriskie Point parking lot, which has no cell phone service; around 11 a.m., another park visitor arrived at the Furnace Creek visitor center to report the emergency.
When rangers arrived, visitors had carried the unconscious woman to the trailhead. An ambulance took her to the helicopter, and she was flown to a Las Vegas hospital for treatment of what the park report called heat illness. Her condition was not reported.
A park visitor’s death on July 6 was blamed on heat illness. He was one of six German men traveling by motorcycle on a day when the temperature reached 128 degrees.
