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On Monday, April 4, a Utah woman fell to her death, plummeting 20 feet from the Grand Canyon during a private boating trip. The National Parks Service (NPS) confirmed her death on Tuesday, April 5.
Margaret "Meg" Osswald of Salt Lake City was hiking along the Ledges Camp along the Colorado River when she fell, sustaining fatal injuries, as per NPS officials' statement.
The Utah woman was on a multi-day private boating trip
The 34-year-old woman was hiking along the trail to meet her friends' group at the historic lodge Phantom Ranch on day 6 of a multi-day private boating trip. Osswald fell near Ledges Camp, a site with stair-stepping slabs of rock at river mile 152, at 6.30 pm on Monday evening.
Other members of the river trip group found her unresponsive so they administered CPR in an attempt to resuscitate her. When their efforts were unsuccessful, the NPS was called in for an emergency situation of an unresponsive river trip participant.
The Grand Canyon National Park authorities then enlisted the help of the Arizona Department of Public Safety to request an emergency helicopter response due to the growing darkness.
The deployed emergency helicopter only managed to locate Osswald at the Ledges Camp around 8.30 pm, where the responding crew pronounced her dead at the scene.
Who was Margaret Osswald?
Osswald had been a government official for over 10 years, holding posts at the Utah Attorney General's Office, the state Department of Natural Resources, and the US Department of Justice.
She served seven years in the environment and natural resources divisions at the Attorney General's Office before her current role as Assistant Director at the Utah Division of Water Quality.
Osswald was a Forestry Technician at the Department of Natural Resources and a law clerk at the US Department of Justice. As per the Utah State Bar, the 34-year-old was a law graduate from the University of Utah who passed the bar in 2016.
A Utah Division of Water Quality spokeswoman said in a statement on Tuesday,
"We are heartbroken by this tragic loss and our thoughts and support go out to her loved ones at this difficult time."
NPS and the Coconino County Medical Examiner are conducting an investigation into the cause of the accident.
Osswald's death is already the fourth reported death in the Grand Canyon this year. The news came just 11 days after 68-year-old Mary Kelley died in another river boating accident.
The Steamboat Springs, Colorado native was also on a multi-day private boating trip when she fell into the 1,450-mile-long Colorado River near Hance Rapid in the eastern part of the Grand Canyon National Park.
A personal locator beacon of an emergency situation alerted park officials shortly after 11.00 am on Thursday, March 24 after her group members found her unresponsive.
Like Osswald's boating incident, the group members' CPR was ineffective and the emergency helicopter response crew and park rangers pronounced Kelley dead upon arrival.
