
Tragedy struck Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park on June 7. A park ranger was killed after sustaining serious injuries from helping park visitors during a popular annual astronomy event.
According to the National Park Service, Tom Lorig was assisting at Bryce Canyon’s Astronomy Festival at 11:30 PM when he was asked to direct a visitor to the shuttle bus. As he was helping, the 78 year-old ranger tripped and fell, hitting his head on a large rock when he collided with the ground.
The visitor whom Lorig was assisting attempted to help, but he was unresponsive. She then attracted the attention of the park police and asked that Lorig be helped. In a flurry of activity over the next several minutes, bystanders with medical training assisted park rangers to provide Lorig with life-saving first aid, and then paramedics arrived and took over, but nothing help. Lorig could not be revived.
According to a statement issued by Park Superintendent Jim Ireland, Tom Lorig served in the National Park Service as an interpretive park ranger, helping to guide visitors to special places in the park and explain to them what they were seeing so that they could share his joy at the wonders of Bryce Canyon. His loss will be sorely felt by coworkers and family alike.
Ireland also expressed gratitude to the bystanders and first responders who attempted to save Lorig’s life.
According to the National Park Service, Lorig served for forty years as a registered nurse in the Seattle area. For more than ten years he also worked as a seasonal, volunteer, and then permanent park ranger. He first worked for the National Park Service at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico in June of 1968. During the following decades, he did stints at thirteen other national parks, including Glen Canyon, Mount Rainier, Yosemite, Zion, Dinosaur National Monument, the Badlands, Saguaro, New River Gorge, El Malpais, and many others.