Tourist found dead near site where 2 hunters were fatally struck by lightning in Colorado national forest

A tourist was found dead Friday in Colorado’s San Juan National Forest near the site where two young hunters were killed in a lightning strike just two weeks prior.

The unidentified 54-year-old man who had been trekking along an isolated part of the South San Juan Wilderness was already dead by the time authorities responding to a distress call reached him, the Conejos County Sheriff’s Office said.

A group of hunters originally phoned in a distress call around 11:23 p.m. local time about a medical emergency involving the man and were attempting CPR, according to the sheriff’s office.

It’s unclear if the man, who was from Tennessee, had been traveling with the group of hunters beforehand or if they crossed paths.

A crew with the Conejos County Search and Rescue Team was dispatched and found the tourist, who was dead when they arrived.

The rescue team couldn’t conduct a full recovery mission with the necessary airlift because of the “hazardous nighttime conditions” and returned the following morning to collect his body, according to the sheriff’s office.

The man’s identity is being withheld pending family notification, officials said.

A medical examiner will determine the cause of death.

The man’s body was found a few miles from where the remains of two missing elk hunters were discovered on Sept. 18 following a week-long search.

The pair of out-of-state hunters, Andrew Porter and Ian Stasko, both 25, were found dead roughly two miles away from the Rio de Los Pinos Trailhead in the national forest.

Both had been struck by lightning and died instantaneously. Their bodies were largely unscathed save for “slight burns,” according to the Conejos County coroner.

“That kind of death is just instant. It’s like you’re alive and now you’re not. Just that quick. Split second,” the coroner said.

Porter’s devastated fiancée speculated that the pair briefly returned to Stasko’s vehicle to change out of their soaked clothes after being caught off-guard by a torrential downpour, and then went back out and were hit by lightning.

“It may not have been legal yet, but he was my husband and partner. We have been together quite awhile, but lived together like a married couple for the past 3 years. I wish I had 30 more. I sure feel like a widow. I sure feel like my future is blank now,” she wrote in a heartbreaking post on Facebook.

“But what reassures me is that they were doing what they loved, without fear, well prepared and equipped and this is a bizarre horrific act of nature. It could’ve happened anywhere, to anyone.”

The Rio Grande National Forest is made up of roughly 1.86 million acres, according to the National Forest Foundation.