Global Courant
A 14-year-old boy fell ill and eventually died in extreme heat while hiking in Texas’s Big Bend National Park on Saturday, officials said.
His stepfather, identified only as a 31-year-old man, died while seeking help for the boy when the vehicle he was in veered off its path and crashed off an embankment below an overlook, the National Park Service said in a statement.
The teen’s cause of death was pending. The local sheriff’s office, which houses the Brewster County medical examiner, did not immediately respond to a request for information.
The park service said the teen was hiking with his stepfather and an older brother, all from Florida, along the Marufo Vega Trail, near the U.S.-Mexico border, when temperatures hit 119 degrees on Saturday.
Park rangers received a call for help at 6 p.m. and responded along with U.S. Border Patrol agents, the park service said. The teen was found dead at 7:30 p.m. and the stepfather’s body was found in his vehicle under Boquillas Overlook about half an hour later, it said.
The National Weather Service’s closest temperature station, an airport in Terlingua, Texas, recorded a high of 108 on Saturday. The local weather bureau issued an extreme heat warning through Tuesday, including a 120-degree forecast for parts of the Rio Grande Valley.
The older brother, identified as a 21-year-old man, was unharmed, the park service said. He had tried to carry the teen back to the trailhead, he said.
On Sunday, the park service said temperatures were “killing” and advised visitors not to hike the Marufo Vega Trail in the afternoon.
“The Marufo Vega Trail winds through extremely rugged desert and rocky bluffs in the hottest part of Big Bend National Park,” the park service said. “No shade or water makes this strenuous trail dangerous to attempt in the heat of summer.”
The deaths were under investigation, the park service said.
