A 14-year-old girl died after falling 700 feet to her death at the Horseshoe Bend Overlook, which is located within the Glen Canyon Recreation Area in Arizona, three days after the majority of the federal staff was placed on furlough. A man who had been injured in a fall at Yosemite National Park in California died the next day, Christmas. At the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which spans the borders of North Carolina and Tennessee, a woman was killed on December 27 by a falling tree.
The Interior Department has ceased most of its operations, but Trump administration officials decided to keep the picturesque, but occasionally lethal, parks open. This decision led to the deaths. In order to significantly reduce the risk of park damage and visitor injury, the National Park Service has already implemented lengthy shutdowns that have prohibited public access to several of its sites around the country. According to Jeremy Barnum, a spokesman for the National Park Service, seven fatalities have occurred in national parks since the closure. He said, “According to officials, four of the deaths were suicides.”
According to him, the park system sees six deaths on average every week, which includes natural causes like heart attacks and suicides as well as accidents like drownings, falls, and car wrecks. The leading causes of death in national parks include drowning, car crashes, falls, and suicides. According to an email from Barnum, “The National Park System offers a wide range of visitor experiences throughout the year in unique landscapes with potential hazards that may exist at parks across the nation.” “If visitors plan ahead and prepare appropriately, choose the most appropriate activity that fits their skill level and experience, research potential risks and environmental conditions before visiting the park, abide by guidelines, and
The Clinton and Obama administrations decided to completely close the parks in 1995 and 2013, respectively. Authorities came to the conclusion that maintaining the parks’ integrity and public safety would be compromised by their closures, but Democrats also used the closures as political fodder because they represented a highly favored component of federal operations that had come to an abrupt end.
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