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A teenage boy and his stepfather died in Massive Bend Nationwide Park in Texas as temperatures there rose to 119 levels Fahrenheit — the second-highest mark ever recorded within the state — throughout a triple-digit heat wave that has gripped a lot of the area.
The person and his two stepsons have been climbing late Friday afternoon, park officers mentioned in a statement over the weekend, when the youthful stepson, who was 14, misplaced consciousness. His brother, 21, tried to hold the boy again to the trailhead whereas the stepfather rushed to his automobile to hunt assist.
By the point park rangers and Border Patrol brokers reached the boy, he had died, officers mentioned. The person, 31, was later discovered lifeless in his automobile, which had crashed.
The three had been climbing on the Marufo Vega Path, which “winds by way of extraordinarily rugged desert and rocky cliffs throughout the hottest a part of Massive Bend Nationwide Park,” the officers’ assertion mentioned. It added that hikers on the path don’t have any entry to shade or water, making it “harmful to aim within the warmth of summer season.”
The park is close to the USA border with Mexico.
Hikers have succumbed to excessive circumstances throughout a number of different warmth waves in the USA lately. The dying of two skilled hikers and their 1-year-old daughter within the Sierra Nationwide Forest of California in 2021 confounded investigators for 2 months, till officers decided that that they had died from the effects of heat stroke and doable dehydration in 110-degree climate.
Final July, a 22-year-old man died, reportedly of heat exhaustion, after he ran out of water whereas climbing within the Badlands of South Dakota. In September, another hiker died and 5 extra have been rescued after affected by excessive warmth in Arizona. In April, a person died on a hiking trail in Lakeside, Calif., after struggling signs of warmth exhaustion.
Massive Bend park officers mentioned they acquired a name for assist round 6 p.m. on Friday, and reached {the teenager} at 7:30 p.m. Round 8 p.m., the stepfather’s automobile was discovered crashed over an embankment. The crash stays below investigation.
The authorities mentioned that the three hikers have been from Florida, however didn’t give their names. The 21-year-old brother who survived has returned house, officers mentioned on Monday.
The dome is forecast to shift slowly to the east throughout the week, extending the brutally sizzling climate to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Forecasters say the sample may proceed by way of the Fourth of July vacation.
The afternoon excessive of 119 levels within the Massive Bend space on Friday, the day the boy and his stepfather died, got here inside one diploma of tying the state’s earlier excessive for any date, of 120 levels Fahrenheit, first recorded in 1936 and equaled in 1994, based on the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
John Keefe contributed reporting.
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