Death Valley National Park.Photo: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty
A California man was found dead in Death Valley National Park as a heat wave caused record temperatures in the area.
Park visitors found the body of David Kelleher, 67, on Tuesday, the National Park Service wrote in anews release. Officials said that it appeared the Huntington Beach man was walking toward Furnace Creek from where his car was parked “after running out of gas.”
The search for Kelleher began days after a park ranger first noticed a vehicle in the Zabriskie Point parking lot on the morning of June 8, officials wrote.
“On the evening of June 11, the same park ranger saw only one vehicle in the parking lot and remembered it from three days earlier,” officials wrote, noting that at the time, temperatures reached as high as 123 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Officials said they found a “crumbled note” that read “out of gas” in Kelleher’s vehicle.
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This marks the park’s second recent fatality, officials wrote in the news release. John McCarry, 69, was found dead in Panamint Valley on June 1, while the search for Peter Harootunian — which began on May 23 — is still ongoing.
Officials advised that “in extreme heat, people should wait at a broken vehicle, rather than attempting to walk for assistance.”
Listing their own safety precautions, NPS said that they encourage all visitors to not hike “at low elevations after 10 am, staying within a short walk of air conditioning, drinking plenty of water, and eating salty snacks.”
source: people.com
