National Park Service (NPS) Dispatch at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area received a report at approximately 9:04 am on Sunday, October 4, of a person who had fallen off a cliff overlooking the Colorado River at the Glen Canyon Dam Overlook. The Glen Canyon Dam Overlook is located on Scenic View Drive near Page, Arizona in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
Witnesses reported the victim was on top of the rim overlooking the Colorado River taking pictures when he fell approximately 100-feet and then slid approximately 150-feet further. The victim suffered severe trauma and showed no signs of life after the fall. A Coconino County Sheriff’s Office Deputy rappelled to the victim at 9:27 am and confirmed the victim was deceased. The victim has been identified as 25-year old Orlando Serrano-Arzola of Phoenix, Arizona.
The Coconino County Sheriff’s Office, National Park Service, Page Police Department, and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation provided assistance with recovery operations. The victim was transported to the Medical Examiner’s Office in Flagstaff for an autopsy.
The incident is under investigation by the National Park Service, Coconino County Sheriff’s Office, and the Coconino County Medical Examiner.
Glen Canyon Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona, United States, near the town of Page. The 710-foot (220 m) high dam was built by the US Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) from 1956 to 1966 and forms Lake Powell, one of the largest man-made reservoirs in the US with a capacity of 27 million acre-feet (33 km3). The dam is named for Glen Canyon, a series of deep sandstone gorges now flooded by the reservoir; Lake Powell is named for John Wesley Powell, who in 1869 led the first expedition to traverse Colorado’s Grand Canyon by boat.
