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Provo man dies while hiking in Havasupai Canyon in Arizona

By Katie England daily Herald - | Jul 3, 2017

A 32-year-old Provo man died over the weekend while hiking in Arizona.

Michael Sproul was hiking to a waterfall in Havasupai Canyon with his wife, Meg Monk Sproul, on Saturday, according to an online crowdfunding page set up by a family member.

Jon Paxton with the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office said the department received a call at approximately 1:30 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on Saturday concerning a man who had collapsed while hiking out of the Havasupai Canyon after complaining about feeling sick.

Paxton said some other people were able to get Sproul onto a horse and transport him to the Hualapai Hilltop, where cars are typically parked when people begin the 10-mile trek to the Havasu Falls and campgrounds.

“He was treated with CPR,” Paxton said. “The subject was then transported to the Flagstaff Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.”

The crowdfunding page says Sproul succumbed from dehydration, but Paxton said the autopsy results have not yet come back.

“We don’t know if it was heat exhaustion, or cardiac arrest,” Paxton said.

Havasu Falls is located south of Grand Canyon National Park on the Havasupai Reservation in northwestern Arizona. The Havasupai Tribe’s official website, theofficialhavasupaitribe.com, warns visitors that the temperatures can often be well over 100 degrees in the summer, and suggests carrying one gallon of water per person.

The website also said it can take many hours to get treatment or be transported out of the canyon in case of injury.

“If emergency helicopter transportation is necessary, the financial cost will be high and the family members will not be taken along with the patient but will need to find their own way out of the canyon,” the website said.

That crowdfunding effort has been shared more than 3,000 times and had raised more than $24,000, as of deadline Monday evening.

Sproul was a supervisor of Vivint Gives Back, a Vivint program that helps children with intellectual disabilities through technology, service and innovation, according to vivint.com.

A Vivint spokeswoman did not return a request for comment Monday.

The crowdfunding page said hiking to the falls was a bucket list item for Sproul.

“Michael died doing what he loved, but most importantly spent his last few days on earth with his sweet wife Meg,” the crowdfunding page said.

Sproul is the second Utah County man to die at the Havasupai Reservation this year. An Orem man, Mark Magleby, drowned at Beaver Falls — about 7 miles from the Havasupai campground — earlier this summer.

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