SEVERN, Md. — Rachel Parkerson was an adventurous, outgoing mother of three when she accepted an invitation from some friends to hike the spectacular and rugged Billy Goat Trail in the C&O Canal Historic Park near Great Falls, Maryland on a brutally hot July day in 2019. Sadly, she wouldn't survive the outing.
The temperature was 99 degrees and a heat advisory had been issued, according to her husband Daniel Parkerson, who said the couple had lived in Nevada during his Navy career and felt that such heat was manageable.
Instead, Rachel Parkerson who had no serious health issues but who was taking a prescription medication that can suppress perspiration began having trouble during the hike, Daniel Parkerson recalled. He said he had packed snacks and several water bottles in a backpack for the hike with their kids.
"It wasn't nearly enough," he said. "They just disappeared way too quick."
Rachel Parkerson was uncomfortable and tired, her husband said, and during a particularly steep scramble up a notch in a cliff, she could go no further.
Daniel Parkerson said he did not recognize this as a possible sign of heat exhaustion. A friend on the hike, Heidi Beatty, said she was "clueless" about heat symptoms.
After a brief rest on the trail, Rachel Parkerson eventually got to the top of the incline. At this point, she had a change in mental status and became panicky and agitated, her husband and friend remembered.
Rachel Parkerson's son descended to the Potomac River to soak a skirt in the water, which the group wrapped around Rachel. Others continued to give her water, according to her husband.
Rachel Parkerson had a seizure, her husband said. That's when he and several bystanders called 911.
Beatty said she and two others, including a nurse who was a fellow hiker, took turns administering CPR until Montgomery County and National Park Service rescuers arrived by boat, walking trail, and from above in a helicopter.
But Daniel Parkerson believes his wife died before they arrived.
"She arrived with an internal temperature of 107," Daniel recalled Doctors at Suburban Hospital telling him. "I'm fairly certain that I actually watched her die before she even got on the helicopter."
Now as hot weather grips the region again, Beatty and Daniel Parkerson ask that people take heat advisories seriously and familiarize themselves wtih the symptoms of heat exhaustion and heatstroke.
"Know your limits, have water, and don't write something off just because you think it's something that you've seen before," Daniel said.
“If you're not feeling well, you've got to do something immediately," Heidi added. "You've got to take care of yourself and stop and go inside, get out of the heat, regardless of what all your friends are doing. They may have different tolerance than you. Take it seriously."