A hiker was found dead after camping overnight at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, park officials say.
The 41-year-old male, who has not been publicly identified, was discovered “unresponsive” along the Bright Angel Trail just east of the Pipe Creek River Resthouse on Sunday morning, according to the National Park Service (NPS).
“All attempts by bystanders and National Park Service personnel to resuscitate the individual were unsuccessful,” officials said. “The hiker was a 41-year-old male who was hiking out of the canyon from an overnight stay at the Bright Angel Campground near Phantom Ranch.”
The death comes after dozens of hikers visiting Havasupai Falls near Grand Canyon National Park recently reported falling violently ill with a mysterious sickness.
In some cases, visitors were too sick to hike back out of the canyon and needed to be carried out via helicopter.
Maylin Griffiths, who visited the falls in Arizona to celebrate her 40th birthday, told AZ Family that her trip quickly turned into a nightmare after she suddenly fell very ill.
“We [left] early morning on the 6th and then set up camp. We had a wonderful campsite,” Griffiths said. “I was throwing up, just a lot of GI issues, and then it just progressively got worse and worse.”
Another friend in her group also got severely ill, and the group ended up hiking back several miles to a village in the canyon to get medical attention.
“He discovered our temperatures were really high. Mine was 104 and my friend was 105. We were violently ill. They were able to admit us to the clinic there because they considered it life threatening,” Griffiths told the outlet.
Havasupai Falls is located on the Havasupai Indian Reservation in Coconino County. In a Facebook post, the Havasupai Tribe Tourism Office wrote that the public water sources on the reservation are tested regularly, and were last determined to be safe for human consumption by the Havasupai Water Department on June 6.
