National park marks seven accidental deaths in 2004
Officials say that makes 2004 a fairly typical year for the country’s most-visited national park.
The 520,000-acre preserve straddling the Tennessee-North Carolina border attracts 9 million visitors a year and averages five visitor deaths annually.
The seven fatalities in 2004 compares to six in 2003. There were no accidental deaths in 2002, a first since such records were kept. The highest tally was in 1986, when 11 people were killed in the park.
Most fatal accidents in the park are the result of motor vehicle accidents, followed by drowning, falling, bicycle wrecks, lightning strikes and hypothermia.
This year was no exception. Six of the seven perished in vehicle wrecks — four of them while riding motorcycles. And most were the result of driver error, though not always by the victims.
“Drive carefully, and stay on your side of the road,” park spokesman Bob Miller said. “Somebody makes a careless move, and it costs someone their life.”
A driver’s health problems may have caused one fatal wreck, while speeding caused another that claimed two lives. Vehicles crossing the center of the Smokies’ winding two-lane roads contributed to the rest.
The seventh fatality in 2004 was a 13-year-old Knoxville boy who drowned during a school field trip. Miller said authorities are still trying to determine if supervising adults were negligent.
The fatality count doesn’t include suicides. There were two of those as well in 2004, including when a man was chased into the park in June by police who suspected him in the shooting death of his girlfriend in Wilmington, N.C. The man shot at officers at a roadblock before turning the gun on himself and crashing his truck.
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Information from: The Daily Times, http://www.thedailytimes.com