Posted on 07/06/2023 10:17:29 AM PDT by NohSpinZone
A California man died from extreme heat at Death Valley National Park amid the highest temperature recorded on Earth this year, park officials said.
The 65-year-old man from San Diego was found dead in his vehicle on Monday morning, Abby Wines, a spokesperson for the park, told SFGATE. This came the day after Death Valley reached 126 degrees, the hottest temperature anywhere on the planet in 2023.
A maintenance worker noticed the man’s vehicle just after 10 a.m. Monday about 30 yards away from North Highway, park officials said in a news release. The worker found the man unresponsive, prompting the arrival of park rangers, Inyo County Sheriff’s Office deputies and officials from the county coroner’s office. The man was declared dead at the scene.
Park officials said they believe the man died from a heat-related illness because his vehicle veered only slightly off the road with two flat tires but didn’t crash. Investigators said they believe the driver’s heat-related illness may have caused him to run off the road.
Officials also said the car’s engine was fully functioning and the vehicle wasn’t stuck, but the air conditioning system appeared to be broken. The man’s sedan was found with the window down, which led investigators to believe he didn’t have air conditioning while he was driving, park officials said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Hey, lets go to Death Valley in summer with bad tires and no AC!
Sounds like a good time!
As it happens, today is also the last day of the Badwater 135 mile race through Death Valley ending up on the Mt. Whitney foothills. Crazy.
https://www.badwater.com/event/badwater-135/
Growing up in Alabama, when I was a kid we often did night driving on long trips in the summer when a car didn’t have A/C. I’m not old enough to remember cars regularly not coming with A/C. But there were times my father thought he fixed the A/C only for us to learn right before a trip that it wasn’t fixed.
Heck in 78 I drove I40 from Barstow to Needles. It was 125° when we pulled into the motel lot in Needles. We were in a 73 Hornet Sportabout with no A/C. We stopped twice in the 92 miles between Ludlow and Needles to cool down the engine to add water.
I’ve been to DV on 120 degree (on the asphalt) on my motorcycle. I carried a shelter, a radio, and three days worth of water with me. I lost about 7 pounds in a day.
I was a dirty, sweaty mess when I pulled my big dirt bike up to lobby of the Marriott resort north of Vegas.
It was fun, but that would kill me today!
MaN kIlLeD bY ClImAtE ChAnGe.
You know that’s how they wanted to write the headline.
The hack simpletons in the media’s favorite device these days to connect two unconnected things in the same story is the use of the word “amid.” That little word is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this story
They lie.
Always.
Well. That’s never happened before.
In addition to that heat, there are large sections of Death Valley with absolutely no cell reception. A satellite phone might help, but chances are he’d have been fried anyway (by the time help arrived)
126 degrees, the hottest temperature anywhere on the planet in 2023.Nah, Jill's boots hit 180 when she found Hunter's coke stash in the Lincoln Bedroom.
It’s not unusual for Death Valley to see 120+ degree temperatures, even 70 years ago.
That and it is literally in the name DEATH Valley.
Now that is pretty neat. I wonder how much cooler its vent temp would be compared to ambient.*
*A quick google search shows an evaporative cooler can give vent temps up to 30 degrees cooler than ambient when the humidity is low (under 20%). That’s on par with a true A/C system IIRC.
Those only worked if the car was moving, unless you had one of the versions that plugged into the cigarette lighter.
You should do a read-through on this thread.
New Mexico’s US Route 285 Ranked the Most Feared Road Trip in America
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4165734/posts
“Before immigration kicked in and cars improved about overheating and batteries, and with better tires, lots of travel was somewhat challenging.
Interstate 10 was sparse in the 60s with those small-town gas stations closing at night, there were water barrels on inclines to refill all the overheated radiators on passenger cars.
Females traveling cross country without a man was very rare, with all the breakdowns, flats, long stretches, gas cans, water pouches for drinking water hanging from the hood ornament to cool, brakes overheating, vapor lock, having to spend a night in a gas station parking lot waiting for it to open in the morning so that you could fill up to continue, pay phones and towns few and far between, no air conditioning and the open car windows air frying you.
Which is why many drove across the desert at night-and many motels along Route 66 offered special rates for daytime sleepers.
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