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UPDATE: Second Lightning Fatality At Rocky Mountain National Park In Two Days

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Published Date

July 12, 2014

Editor's note: This updates with a fatality from Saturday's lightning strike, and identification of the woman killed from a lightning strike Friday.

A hiker was struck and killed by lightning Saturday at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, the second fatality in two days due to lightning.

The man, whose identity was not immediately released, was with three others near Rainbow Curve high atop Trail Ridge Road at an elevation of 10,829 feet, park officials said Saturday evening. The strike was reported shortly before 4 p.m. Saturday.

On Friday, an Ohio woman was killed shortly before 1:30 p.m. when a lightning bolt hit near a group of eight hikers on the Ute Crossing Trail at an elevation of about 11,400 feet in an area above treeline between Rainbow Curve and Forest Canyon Overlook. 

Park officials said Saturday that the hikers were returning to the trailhead when lightning struck the area, roughly 500 yards from the trailhead. While an air ambulance was able to land between cycles of severe weather, the woman died on scene, park spokeswoman Kyle Patterson said in a release. The woman was identified as Rebecca R. Teilhet, 42, from Yellow Springs, Ohio. She was hiking with her husband and a friend, who were taken by ambulance to Estes Park Medical Center, the release added.

The other five victims were part of a local hiking group and transported themselves to the Estes Park Medical Center.

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