As temperatures swelled to 128 degrees, Death Valley National Park rangers got a call that a group of six motorcyclists were in distress. All available medics rushed to the scene, and rangers dispatched the park’s two ambulances.
It was an “all-hands-on-deck call,” said Spencer Solomon, Death Valley National Park’s emergency medical coordinator. The superheated air was too thin for an emergency helicopter to respond, but the team requested mutual aid from nearby fire departments.
They arrived Saturday to find one motorcyclist unresponsive, and medics labored unsuccessfully to resuscitate him. Another rider who had fallen unconscious was loaded into an ambulance, where emergency medical technicians attempted to rapidly cool the victim with ice as they transported him to an intensive care unit in Las Vegas. The four other motorcyclists were treated at the site and released.
With record heat blanketing California and much of the West recently, Death Valley has hit at least 125 degrees every day since the Fourth of July, and that streak isn't likely to change until the weekend, according to the National Weather Service. READ FULL ARTICLE