JASPER, Alberta — A 9-year-old Japanese boy died of hypothermia Thursday, after falling into a crevasse while walking with his father on a Canadian glacier.
Heroic rescue effort ended in heartbreak when nine-year-old Naofumi Fukushima, who had succumbed to hypothermia, could not be revived and was declared dead in hospital early Thursday.
“We try to look at our actions and examine what we did in a bigger picture sense and cling to the fact that we did the best work we could under the circumstances,” said Steve Blake, a Jasper National Park warden who took part in the recovery.
Naofumi was hiking with his father on the toe of the Columbia Glacier on Wednesday afternoon when he stepped on a snow bridge concealing the crevasse and fell through, Blake said.
The Fukushima family are temporary residents of Calgary, where Naofumi’s father Shigenobu Fukushima is a fellow at the University of Calgary medical school.
The warden’s office, about 100 kilometers away from the site, got the emergency call at 4 p.m. By the time the rescue crew managed to pull Naofumi out, it was 8 p.m. and he had no pulse.
