National Park Service Worker Dies after Injury in Employee Housing

Yosemite, CA (WorkersCompensation.com) – Officials with the National Park Service said an employee who was found with severe injuries inside employee housing has died.

In a statement on Thursday, the NPS said it is “investigating the death of a woman who was found injured March 20 at concessioner housing in Yosemite Valley.”

The 34-year-old Fresno, Calif., woman was found by law enforcement rangers and rescue personnel last week, officials said. The officers were called to the employee housing unit were called to respond to a medical emergency. The worker was transported to Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno where she died of her injuries the next day, the NPS said in a statement. While NPS did not identify the woman, NPS did say she was an employee of Yosemite Hospitality.

"The NPS Investigative Services Branch is investigating the death alongside the Fresno County Sheriff-Coroner's Office and Federal Bureau of Investigation," NPS said in a statement.

Tony Botti, Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, told the LA Times that park rangers suspected the employee’s injuries and death were suspicious.

“We at the Sheriff’s Office are assisting in the investigation to see if it is indeed suspicious,” Botti said. However, there was no evidence of any foul play. “Nothing lends itself to that at this point.”

Initially, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office said the FBI was in charge of the investigation, but later the sheriff’s office said the National Park Service was investigating the incident.

The incident comes just months after other incidents at National Parks.

In October, an NPS law enforcement ranger died in the line of duty at Voyageurs National Park.

NPS officials said Keven Grossheim, 55, of Kabetogama, Minn., died on Namakan Lake.

“Kevin was much loved by all and always known to go above and beyond,” Voyageurs National Park Superintendent Bob DeGross said in a statement. “He will be greatly missed. Our hearts go out to his wife and their loved ones.”

Officials said Grossheim responded to a distress call from park visitors near Birch Cove Island. The Ranger took the family of three onto his National Park Service boat, which overturned in high winds and rough water. The family was able to reach safety, but Grossheim did not. His body was recovered later than afternoon after a three-hour search, officials said.

And in July 2024, a Yellowstone worker died in a shootout.

On July 4, 2024, the employee was killed after rangers got into a shootout with a visitor. Officials said the law enforcement ranger was called to respond to reports of an individual making threats with a firearm at Canyon Village in the central part of the park. NPS said the situation then escalated into an exchange of gunfire between the subject and the rangers.

Samson Fussner, a temporary worker employed by Xanterra Travel Collection, was identified as the deceased. He was scheduled to work through Sept. 15, 2025.

Officials said that during the shootout, a Yellowstone law enforcement ranger was also injured. The ranger was taken to a nearby hospital and treated for their injuries. NPS described the confrontation with the shooter as a “significant law enforcement incident,” to emphasize the severity of the situation. The area around the Canyon Lodge complex was closed off during the investigation.

The violent nature of the Yellowstone event, as well as the accidents at other parks, has left many wondering about the safety and security within national parks, especially given cuts to staffing implemented by President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk.

In 2024, NPS officials assured the public there were no ongoing threats. Now, after DOGE terminated the employment of probationary employees at the national parks, some are worried there won’t be enough staff to protect visitors or other park staff members.

Mindy Riesenberg, chief of communications for the Grand Canyon Conservancy, said visitors will have to wait in hours long lines just to get into the park.

"We had almost five million visitors last year at Grand Canyon," she said. "And now I think we're down to about 11 fee collectors for the South Rim, for five million people a year."

In other parks, the jobs cuts will impact things visitors might not see, like the Transcanyon Waterline in the Grand Canyon. That project came to a stop with scientists and botanists and arborists no longer able to replant trees for shade and safety, officials said.

Chuck Sams, who served as the 19th director of the National Park Service and who resigned in January, said the parks were already understaffed.

“National Park Service needs at least 15% to as much as 25% more staff on the ground in order to fully meet its mandate,” he told CBS Sunday Morning in March. “It's important that these folks are out there. And now, we've seen a 10 percent reduction in staff. So, it's going to be detrimental to people's experiences in the parks."

On March 12, two federal judges ordered the Trump administration to re-instate the park employees who had been fired because they were probationary workers. In the email terminating their employment, officials told the workers they weren’t qualified for their positions. The judges ordered the workers to be reinstated because that just wasn’t true.

“In this case, the government conducted massive layoffs, but it gave no advance notice," U.S. District Judge James Bredar wrote in his ruling. "It claims it wasn't required to because, it says, it dismissed each one of these thousands of probationary employees for 'performance' or other individualized reasons. On the record before the Court, this isn't true. There were no individualized assessments of employees. They were all just fired. Collectively."

On March 17, the Trump administration said its agencies (the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of the Interior and the Treasury Department) were working to reinstate the fired employees, while temporarily placing them on paid leave. Since then, court documents show many of the fired employees are being reinstated, but some remain on administrative leave, while others still don’t have a clear indication of when, or if, they will ever return-to-duty.

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