Body identified as park worker’s
A body found in Mount Rainier National Park is that of missing park worker Darcy Quick, the Pierce County medical examiner’s office has confirmed.
Quick, 22, died of blunt force injuries sustained in an accidental fall, the medical examiner’s office said Tuesday.
Quick failed to return from a hike on Friday evening. After a helicopter spotted a body at the base of Comet Falls on Monday morning, a ground crew confirmed that it matched the description of the missing woman, said Lee Taylor, a park spokeswoman.
Quick had taken a job at the park about three weeks ago after graduating from Hope College in Michigan. Her roommate reported her missing Saturday. She had told friends she planned to go for a hike Friday evening in the rugged terrain above the National Park Inn, where she worked as a receptionist.
KETCHUM, Idaho
Car pool lane posed for Sun Valley area
The federal government has announced plans to include high-occupancy-vehicle lanes in and out of the resort area of Sun Valley.
“We’d be looking at gridlock if we didn’t look at HOV,” Rep. Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, told the Idaho Mountain Express.
The HOV lanes would run about 12 miles from Hailey to Ketchum. They are part of a $100 million project to improve Highway 75 from its intersection with U.S. 20 to Ketchum, about 30 miles.
The Federal Highway Administration on Friday chose the option with HOV lanes as its “preferred alternative.” That plan has Highway 75 as four lanes through most of the Wood River Valley.
The HOV lanes would be reserved for vehicles carrying multiple passengers during peak commuter drive times. In the mornings, the HOV lane would be for travelers heading north. In the afternoons, the HOV lane would be for southbound traffic. Outside of HOV hours, the lanes would revert to regular traffic use.
Before the project can begin, money for the highway must be approved.
KELOWNA, British Columbia
Teen, woman die from hantavirus
British Columbia residents have been warned to be cautious about spring cleaning in areas infested by deer mice, after a 14-year-old boy and a Washington state woman died from hantavirus.
The 14-year-old Naramata-area boy, previously healthy, began feeling ill two weeks ago, was initially hospitalized for respiratory distress on June 11, then was transferred to British Columbia Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, where he died Friday.
He was the fifth resident of the province in about a decade to die of hantavirus, which is transmitted mostly by deer mouse droppings.
Health officials say the risk of hantavirus typically rises when dried mouse droppings are stirred into the air and are inhaled during spring cleaning, especially in rural cabins, barns and garages.
In May, a 49-year-old eastern Idaho man died from hantavirus, prompting officials with Idaho’s Central Health District to issue a hantavirus warning as well. And on Monday, state health officials received a report of a second Idaho man who contracted hantavirus and survived, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare spokesman Tom Shanahan said.