According to a National Park Service news release, the 42-year-old Belgian tourist was taking a short walk Saturday in the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in 123-degree heat when he either broke or lost his flip-flops, putting his feet into direct contact with the desert ground. The result: third-degree burns.
“The skin was melted off his foot,” said Death Valley National Park Service Ranger Gia Ponce. “The ground can be much hotter — 170, 180 [degrees]. Sometimes up into the 200 range.”
Unable to get out on his own and in extreme pain, the man and his family recruited other park visitors to help; together, the group carried him to the sand dunes parking lot, where park rangers assessed his injuries.
Though they wanted a helicopter to fly him out, helicopters can’t generate enough lift to fly in the heat-thinned air over the hottest parts of Death Valley, officials said. So park rangers summoned an ambulance that took him to higher ground, where it was a cooler 109 degrees and he could then be flown out.
A group of European-American pioneers got lost here in the winter of 1849-1850, while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California, giving Death Valley its grim name. Although only one of the group members died here, they all assumed that the valley would be their grave.
I bet more people have died at each of the other 3 parks than at Death Valley NP. Maybe there’s data out there on that somewhere
Interestingly, the park service have a very nice dashboard to look at this:
https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/mortality-data.htm
However, it doesn’t give you the deaths per count of visitors.
This article claims Denali, to be the top park in deaths per capita.
https://www.backpacker.com/survival/the-10-most-dangerous-national-parks-in-america/
It looks like Death Valley is up there, but not the highest, due to motor vehicle accidents. This makes sense since going to death valley ends up just being a lot of time in the car.
