Pittsburgh-area woman drowns at Glacier National Park
WEST GLACIER, Mont. (KDKA) -- A visitor who drowned at Glacier National Park in Montana was identified as a woman from the Pittsburgh area.
The woman, identified Tuesday as 26-year-old Gillian Tones from North Apollo, Armstrong County, died after she fell into the water near St. Mary Falls on Sunday.
Witnesses reported Tones slipped on wet, slick rocks and fell into Virginia Creek between St. Mary and Virginia falls, about 200 yards above the trail bridge, the National Park Service said in a news release.
Officials said she was swept up by fast-moving water and went over several smaller waterfalls before she was pinned by a log. Tones was underwater for several minutes until other "heroic" park visitors pulled her from the river, the National Park Service said.
Bystanders, park rangers and first responders tried to resuscitate her, but she was pronounced dead around 7 p.m., about an hour and a half after park dispatch received the 911 calls at 5:20 p.m. Authorities said rangers were on scene around 5:45 p.m. and a helicopter landed at 6:20 p.m.
"The park extends their deepest condolences to family and friends of Tones and asks that the public respect their privacy," the park said in its press release.
Between 2014 and 2019, the National Park Service said it recorded an average of 358 deaths in national parks a year, about half of which are unintentional. Of unintentional deaths, drowning accounted for the second most fatalities behind vehicle crashes.
