Tragedy in Almannagjá: „Of course people are alarmed by incidents such as this one“

A for­eign man in his seventies died in Almanna­gjá at Þing­vellir national park on Saturday. The man lived abroad and was tra­vell­ing in Iceland.

As stated by mbl.is, there was a great set of mea­sures und­er­ta­ken in Almanna­gjá on Saturday, due to a man fall­ing acutely ill. Emergency per­sonnel from The Health Institute of South Iceland, together with the staff of the national park, provided the man with first aid.

The Coast Guard’s helicopter, police, and paramedics from Reykja­vík and Selfoss arri­ved on the scene. Resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful, and the man was pronounced dead at the scene.

In a conversation with Morg­un­blaðið, the national park guard Einar Á. E. Sæmund­sen said: „Of course people are alar­med by incidents such as this one. Many people were in the area and saw what happ­ened and how things tran­spired. Such events also put a lot of strain on our staff, who must deal with many differ­ent and dem­and­ing tasks. When there are 4,000 to 6,000 people in the area every day, as is the case in high sum­mer, one can always expect unexpected events like this one, that we respond to to the best of our ability. „

This article was orig­inally publ­is­hed in Icelandic by Lára Garð­ars­dóttir.