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20-year-old hiker shares Grand Canyon warning
After spending a month in the hospital, a hiker cautions others about soaring temperatures inside the Grand Canyon. FOX 10's Nicole Krasean reports.
A 20-year-old Arizona woman in good health who has been to the Grand Canyon before is hoping her experience at the national park this spring will act as a tale of caution for other hikers.
What they're saying:
Madelyn Mineer says she still was not fully prepared for what happened when she tried hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in May.
Mineer says her family has taken backpacking trips in the Grand Canyon before, but this year they decided to hike to the bottom of the canyon. It was a feat her parents had accomplished before, but one that was new to her and her siblings.
"My sister's going off to college. We were like, 'OK, let's just all go,' so I was training and training," Mineer said.
The family made it through the first day and night just fine, but on the second day's hike, Mineer says she and her dad fell behind the rest of the group.
"We have like a mile left to go, and there's no shade and not really any place to stop, so you just have to kind of get it over with and we both had just run out of water at that point, and we weren't feeling well, so we were telling the people in front of us to go and start filtering water from the area where we were gonna stop for lunch," Mineer said.
Madelyn Mineer, a 20-year-old hiker, warns visitors about extreme heat inside the Grand Canyon after suffering heat stroke, kidney failure, and liver failure during a family trip in May.
Dig deeper:
Then, Mineer says, she tripped and fell.
"That's kind of the last thing that I remember and then waking up in the hospital," Mineer said.
Mineer had been flown out of the canyon after her family made contact with search and rescue crews roughly two hours after she fell. She was hospitalized in St. George, Utah.
"I just remember waking up in the I-C-U, and they were like, ‘You have heat stroke, kidney failure, liver failure,’" Mineer said.
Mineer spent a month in the hospital, spending time on dialysis and undergoing several blood transfusions. She was released in mid-June and says she is recovering well, but this terrifying experience has taught her to never underestimate the heat at the Grand Canyon.
"It was over 100 degrees, like the sun coming off of the rocks. It just made everything so much hotter. My word of caution is just be prepared because I was just like, that's never gonna happen to me, you know, and you never know," Mineer said.
By the numbers:
The National Weather Service has the high at the Grand Canyon at 87 on May 12, and the bottom of the canyon can be 15 to 30 degrees warmer.
The National Park Service search and rescue crews reportedly respond to approximately 310 incidents a year, according to the Grand Canyon Conservancy.
What you can do:
Mineer says her family is facing hefty hospital fees and has set up a GoFundMe to help with the costs.
Click here to learn the signs and symptoms of heat-related illnesses.
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