Man Dies After Hiking a Mile in 119-Degree Death Valley

A man died of heat exposure in Death Valley earlier this month, the second heat-related death in the California national park this year. Authorities say Peter Hayes Robino, 57, a Los Angeles County man, returned to the National Bridge Trailhead after taking a one-mile roundtrip hike on August 1, USA Today reports. Bystanders said he was seen stumbling, and that when help was offered to him, he turned it down but his responses did not make sense, CBS News reports. He then got in his car and drove off a steep 20-foot embankment at the edge of the parking lot. Bystanders helped him walk back to the parking lot and get to shade, but he stopped breathing shortly before emergency responders arrived on scene.

The EMTs started CPR and moved Robino into an air-conditioned ambulance, but he could not be resuscitated and was declared dead at 4:42pm, nearly an hour after the 911 call about his car accident was made. An autopsy found his cause of death was hyperthermia, or heat exposure. The temperature at the Furnace Creek weather station on the afternoon of his death was 119 degrees Fahrenheit. Last month, a motorcyclist in Death Valley died during a weekend when temperatures hit 128 degrees. (More Death Valley National Park stories.)