bluejayphoto/iStock(TUSAYAN, Ariz.) — A tourist fell to his death in Grand Canyon National Park on Wednesday morning, officials said, the third person to die at the canyon in the past eight days.
The 67-year-old man fell about 400 feet from the canyon’s South Rim, east of the Yavapai Geology Museum, just before noon, according to the National Park Service. Authorities did not say how the man fell.
The park’s helicopter was able to recover the man’s body.
It is the second time in six days a person has plunged to their death at the Grand Canyon, prompting a warning from park officials.
“Grand Canyon National Park staff encourages all visitors to have a safe visit by staying on designated trails and walkways, always keeping a safe distance from the edge of the rim and staying behind railings and fences at overlooks,” they said in a release.
This is the first person to fall to their death inside Grand Canyon National Park this year, but a tourist from Hong Kong died falling into the Grand Canyon on the Hualapai reservation, outside the boundaries of the park, on March 28. That death happened near the Grand Canyon Skywalk, a horseshoe-shaped outlook over a 1,000-foot cliff face, which closed for a day after the death.
The man was taking a photo at the time, officials said.
Two days before that man fell to his death, another person was mysteriously found dead in a wooded area of the national park. The body was found near a hiking trail, not the rim of the canyon, south of Grand Canyon Village, authorities said.
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