NPS STATISTICS -- SHAME SHAME

[guest]

A little research on the net revealed the following: More people died on average in the last ten years in our national parks than in commercial aviation accidents! Only 10% of these fatalities can be attributed to "high risk" sports! Yosemite has one of the highest fatality rates of all national parks! Those parks with capable management have increased funding for safety programs. At North Cascades National Park a mountain-climbing safety program reduced the number of fatal accidnets from 1 per 600 climbs to 1 per 11,400 climbs. Although no one can ever claim 100% safety in high risk sports, perhaps a better tact might be to attempt to convince NPS that it is their disregard for proper safety programs that has led to BASE deaths thus far. Why is it that our tax dollars pay for education on climbing programs and not BASE? The media has continually pointed out that there have been 6 BASE deaths in Yosemite. Why not point out that there have been 17-25 deaths in Yosemite every year! The Park Service has the power to regulate these sports. Perhaps this is one instance that regulation would be a better goal for us? For example, if they regulated BASE perhaps a rule specifying reserves equiped with AAD's off of El Cap? More people drown in swimming and boating accidents in our national parks than in climbing accidents. And, the media attention on "regular" fatalities in our parks is underwhelming. Perhaps a concerted effort amongst BASE jumpers to continue to flaunt the NPS record would help. All of the records are accessible to us. We should be using them to our advantage.

[guest]

You see, NPS's own data reveals the magnitude of illogic of its discrimination against us. And here's one more: The rangers themselves say 6,000 jumps have been made in Yosemite, with six fatalities. If we accept their numbers, that's a 1/10th of one percent fatality rate... factor in the fact that NPS's current policy was a factor in half of them (yeah, yeah, I know, bottom line, they did it to themselves), and you start to see an even clearer picture.

BASE jumping doesn't kill a disporoportionate number of its practitioners, and when they do require rescue or recovfery, they're at the bottom of the cliffs, where it's easy and SAFE to get them.

Riiver rescues and lost hikers are another thing entirely: Many thousands of dollars are required to field big search teams for days and days, and river rescues/body recoveries are not only expensive but extremely hazardous for the rescue crews.

Excellent piece of work, Elaine, and could you please post the websites where you found these stats? The rangers and reporters lurking this board should be able to check this out for themselves.

Thanks again.

[guest]

Rethink your "bottom of the cliff" statement. I think you will find that only Susan Oatley and Jan went to the bottom of the cliff. The bottom of the cliff at Half Dome is not an "easy and safe place to get them." It still requires a helicopter operation. By the way, what is your source for the rangers claiming 6000 jumps having been made in Yosemite?

[imported_mknutson]

There are over 1,000 El Capitan numbers to date.
There are also almost 200 Half Dome numbers.
You also have Glacier Point numbers and a dozen or so more cliff in the park that people have openly announced as have been jumped. Some people have claimed to have jumped almost 100 times off of El Capitan alone. In the 1980's, there where dozens of jumps made by many of the jumpers. This does not even include the hundreds of people that have jumped from around the world that do not want a number at all!

So, here is the lowest possible case:
1,100 persons off El Capitan recorded(by Jean B.).
200 persons off Half Dome recorded(by Jean B.).
100 persons off Glacier Point recorded(by Jean B.).
5 jumps per person average.
=======
7,000 jumps made.
5 fatalities.
1 fatality for every 1,400 jumps

But, here is possible case with an addition 40% than there are actual numbers issued:
1,540 persons off El Capitan.
280 persons off Half Dome.
140 persons off Glacier Point.
5 jumps per person average (still).
=======
9,800 jumps made.
5 fatalities.
1 fatality for every 1,960 jumps

Keep in mind, this is just stats in Yosemite.
Bridge Day alone has almost 1,000 jumps made in just one day. How many fatalities have happend since 1980's there? They have no descrimination there for one day a year and our track record is incredible!

The track record is clear!

[guest]

Magilla hit the bottom and so did Jim Tyler, and _compared_ to river rescues and multi-day searches in the back country, rescue/recovery from the bottom of the big walls is a cakewalk.

As for the 6,000 figure, that's what AP reports based oninformation given to them by Yosemite Chief Ranger Bob Andrews.

[guest]

Magilla hung up on El Cap Tower. It cost more that $5000 to get him down.

[guest]

Thanks for setting us straight, Ranger. AS long as we're talking, what has been the total cost to rescue/recover all BASE jumpers in Yosemite during the past 20 years?

And how much overtime did the taxpayers pay for the stakeouts and other BASE-targeted law-enforcement activity over the years?

And how many hours of taxpayer-paid ranger time are spent monitoring this board every day?

[guest]

Whatever it cost, send Magilla a bill for the rescue, suggest he buy some rescue insurance like climbers do in Canada and Europe and tell your boss to "let the people have the freedom to jump" Aren't you tired of this too ?

[guest]

They may start doing just that for the climbers in Denali:

Check out this little bill, favorably reported from the senate committee on energy and nat. resources with a do pass recommendation (it simply authorizes a $250,000 study):

S.698:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c106:S.698.RS:

Sponsor Sen. Murkowski:
http://www.senate.gov/~murkowski/

Senate Committee report page:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/z?cp106:sr071:

and finally, Dept. of Interior testimony:

http://www.nps.gov/legal/testimony/106th/denrescu.htm

Gardner

[guest]

Most of the sites were found through nps.gov and their own search engine. I used the Morning Reports along with individual sites. A number of the parks (Denali, Cascades, etc.) have their own sites listing not only fatalities, but dollars spent on search & rescue missions.

For example: "Yosemite NP -- Hiking in Tuolumne
Rangers in Yosemite conducted 192 search and rescue missions in 1996. Most involved evacuating hikers with lower leg injuries. Related Hiking Information Yosemite Valley Hikes Wawona Hikes Tripping and falling are ..."
http://www.nps.gov/yose/gtmhike.htm

AND THIS IS ONLY IN THE TUOLUMNE MEADOWS AREA!!!!

Another site on Yosemite was http://www.nps.gov/yose/facts96.htm

Another used was related to Denali National Park in Alaska:
"There were nine major mountaineering incidents in 1998 involving seventeen climbers. The National Park Service (NPS) expended $181,163 for search and rescue activities. The military incurred an additional $321,455 to assist the NPS in these incidents. http://www.nps.gov/dena/mountain/199...ry/page12.html

And if you search the Denver Post archives there is an especially eloquent editorial by James Hecht (who lost his son at Yellowstone). I would suggest that someone write a sample letter for everyone on the Board to copy and send to their Senators and Congressmen.

Elaine

[BASE359]

Visits twice as risky as taking a plane
By James L. Hecht
Special to The Denver Post

Aug. 2 - Most visitors to a national park have no idea that their vacation trip is twice as likely to result in a fatal accident as taking an airplane.

That certainly was true of my wife and me on June 28, 1970, as we and our three children - along with many others - strolled on a boardwalk toward Crested Pool in the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone National Park. We had no sense of danger as we made a 90-degree turn on the boardwalk. But our 9-year-old son tripped at the turn and, because there was no guardrail, his momentum carried him across six feet of shallow water into the deep part of the pool. He swam several strokes, was scalded to death in the 200-degree water, and sank before our eyes.

Except for those who use the parks for a high-risk activity such as mountain climbing, few visitors go with a sense of danger. The people killed in the parks die in largely unnoticed accidents involving a single fatality, whereas an airline crash, involving many deaths, receives major attention from the media. Yet, in the past 15 years, visitor fatalities in the national parks have been about the same as deaths from all commercial aviation accidents - both averaging about 150 per year. In addition, about 1,000 people are seriously injured in the parks each year, far more than in airline accidents.

The reason that visiting a national park is twice as dangerous as flying - even though flying should be more dangerous - is that billions are spent annually to make air travel safer, but only a few million are allocated to improve safety in the national parks. This is not nearly enough to make visitor safety a foremost concern of the 20,000 people who work full-time or part-time for the Park Service and to provide them with the knowledge they need. Yet the way a summer employee responds to a visitor contact can be a matter of life or death.

After Andy was killed it appeared that his death would be ignored like hundreds of others that had occurred. The year before he died the death toll from accidents in parks was 182, five times greater than 10 years before. During the decade, the accident rate had increased steadily from 0.6 to 1.1 per million visits. One reason for this increase was that more visitors were coming from urban areas where they were accustomed to being protected. Another factor was that, as the parks became more crowded, people were more likely to assume they were safe.

At the time of Andy's death, I had worked for 16 years for DuPont where, because safety always was the top priority, lost-time work accidents were only one-tenth that of the average of all chemical companies and one-twentieth the average of all workers. Consequently, there was no doubt in my mind that Andy would not have been killed if the Park Service had had a decent safety program.

Fortunately, my wife and I had the contacts to generate congressional and media concern over the lack of a safety program of the type that an overwhelming majority of people wanted. When the Park Service requested increased funding for more safety officers, Congress doubled the requested increase.

The message was clear and, in just three years, the rate of fatal accidents decreased by 35 percent to 0.71. Moreover, the downward trend continued to less than 0.4. Between 1983 and 1991 the rate always was less than 0.50.

But time and inadequate appropriations for the National Park Service have reversed this progress and the rate of fatal accidents has been increasing steadily during the past decade. Last year 179 visitors to national parks were killed in accidents - 0.65 deaths per million visitors, the highest rate since 1980.

True, even an excellent safety program cannot prevent some accidents. Most accidental deaths at Denali and Mount Rainier, two parks where the accident rate far exceeds the average, occur high on the mountains for which the parks are named. However, less than 10 percent of all park fatalities result from high-risk recreational activities such as mountain climbing.

About 10 percent of park fatalities involve alcohol and drugs. Substance abuse is a factor in about one-half of boating accidents in the parks, and boating accidents cause most of the deaths at Lake Mead, which in recent years has had the most fatalities of any park.

Other parks where accidental deaths are well above average include Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and Grand Teton. These parks have some of the most spectacular scenery in the world, but they also contain dangers unfamiliar to visitors who are used to being protected in urban areas, the workplace and by consumer protection laws.

Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park has been averaging between two and three deaths a year, making it somewhat more dangerous than average. Most of these fatalities have resulted from falls while hiking or climbing.

A careful investigation of an accident usually indicates that it could have been prevented - and how future accidents can be avoided. After Andy was killed, I learned that he was the ninth thermal pool fatality at Yellowstone - and many others had been seriously injured. A verbal warning, a warning sign, a rail around the deadly pool or a better designed boardwalk - any of these would have saved Andy's life. Eventually all were added.

The worst killer in Yellowstone Park is Yellowstone Lake, where survival time in the cold water is only about 5 minutes, even in the summer. In one of many tragedies on this lake, two Boy Scouts and their two adult leaders died when their canoes capsized in a storm that struck suddenly. While the ranger who normally issued boating permits stressed the danger posed by the cold water, this group had the misfortune to receive its permit from another ranger who did not provide the warning.

While most accidents in national parks attract little media attention, bear maulings tend to be an exception. Fortunately, bear maulings account for only about three fatalities per decade, about one quarter of the number killed by lightning in the parks. Black bears, the type found in Rocky Mountain National Park, hardly ever cause fatalities; most fatal maulings are caused by the more dangerous and unpredictable grizzly bears which, except for Alaska, are found only in Glacier and Yellowstone.

Fatalities from bear maulings and lightning strikes may seem like accidents which cannot be avoided, but that is not true. Bear maulings can usually be prevented if the Park Service steers hikers away from areas where bears have been spotted, promptly shoots any bear showing aggressive behavior, never allows feeding of bears, and alerts hikers in bear country to carry bells so that they do not surprise a bear.

Lightning is a danger not unique to national parks; for every fatality in a national park there are about a hundred elsewhere. The Park Service could decrease deaths from lightning both in and out of the parks by providing warnings to hikers to head down from a mountain as quickly as possible and to seek shelter if a thunderstorm threatens.

While we can identify by name people who have died as a result of accidents in the parks, countless others are alive today because of safety actions taken by the Park Service. At North Cascades National Park, a mountain-climbing safety program gradually reduced the number of fatal accidents from 1 per 600 climbs in 1978-80 to 1 per 11,400 during 1987-'90. Since the number of climbers there had increased fourfold to about 5,700 a year during this period, the safety program prevented about nine deaths a year.

Preventing accidents costs money. For airline safety, the Department of Transportation has established the guideline that it is worth spending $2.7 million to save a life. Having experienced the death of a child, I consider that low, but even this amount makes the case for increased spending on park safety overwhelming.

If Congress added $2.7 million to the Park Service's safety budget for better training in accident prevention and more ranger contact with visitors, that would reduce fatal accidents - and be a first step toward making it as safe to visit a national park as taking an airplane flight.

James L. Hecht is a senior fellow at the Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues at the University of Denver. In 1979 he received a Public Service Award from the Department of the Interior for contributions to safety in the national parks.

Copyright Denver Post

[guest]

as time allows, I'll be adding to this. All of the 1997 Yosemite News Reports of injuries or fatalities briefed in a table with links to the actual reports:

http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/~b...ble_97-99.html

It only has incidents for 1997 right now until I crunch and format the remaining 98 and 99 reports.

Elaine's research is more of what we need. I'd also like to see some written accounts of BASE events, if possible. Does Fred Morelli or anyone else know what the statute of limitations is on Yosemite jumps? I would hope that some jumper accounts could be posted; if not (for obvious reasons), then so be it.

I propose that we set up an FTP server somewhere to act as a repository of information which we could all access. I would make it public read access, but write access would have to be authenticated (user accounts??) or moderated to prevent damage to existing files. This repository would help us know what we have and what we need to find. I believe it would aid our ability to organize... things tend to get lost to the archives on here.

I believe that we BASE jumpers suffer from a severe lack of information. It's the nature of the beast. If we could put some numbers behind our words, our case would be strengthened.

[guest]

Interesting statistics, my friends. The Fox has done 21 separate exit points in Yosemite, many of them multiple times as well as jumps in 9 different National Parks with some of those being done multiple times. These have all been done with no injuries and no arrests. Total number of jumps in National Parks is 107 over about a 10 year period. Many additional sites have been identified in several different parks and have yet to be done. This doesn't say much for the abilities of NPS's hot shot law enforcement rangers, does it? See you in the cold, dark night, ranger boys. Don't hurt yourselves.