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Meet Mr. Grand Canyon, the well-known national park doctor who's seen it all

Tom Myers
Grand Canyon Conservancy
Tom Myers

Tom Myers has been called Mr. Grand Canyon. Not only is he an avid hiker and explorer there, he’s also the authority on Canyon wilderness medicine. For decades, he served as the doctor at Grand Canyon National Park — he still works there part time today.

Annette McGivney
John Burcham
Annette McGivney

In a new profile of him for Arizona Highways, writer Annette McGivney tells his story, from how he almost didn’t become a doctor at all, to his treatment of everything from gunshot wounds to heart attacks, to deaths from heatstroke.

Myers is also the co-author of what McGivney describes as the “backcountry bible for anyone venturing below the rim:” the 2001 book "Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon," which lists every known death in the park and tries to guide visitors away from meeting the same fate.

McGivney joined The Show to discuss, starting with how when she first moved to Flagstaff and wanted to hike in the Grand Canyon, there was always one name that came up: Tom Myers.

Full conversation

ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Then he came out with this book right around that time called "Death in Grand Canyon" or "Over the Edge." Everyone just calls it "Death in Grand Canyon." I just got to know Tom just through that community of hikers, and as he was a medical expert and a very humble doctor, but the person that had all the information about, you know, dangerous hazards for hikers and backpackers, and I think around that time in the 1990s, climate change was really starting to kick in, and there were these massive heat waves that were happening in Grand Canyon where people were dying from heat stroke in a way that maybe hadn't happened to such a degree before.

And I really started paying attention to Tom and what he was saying about the dangers of heat in Grand Canyon, and as a journalist, I thought that was very important. I was Southwest editor for Backpacker Magazine at the time, and Tom just was on the leading edge. I just came to really respect him over the decades for the knowledge that he has had.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. And I want to talk about some of those issues you brought up in just a moment as well.  But Tom, let's turn to you first and talk a little bit about your story and what led you here, which Annette tells so well. In this piece for Arizona Highways, it sounds like there was a point at which you thought you weren't going to become a doctor at all, right? Like you were gonna kind of quit nearing the end of medical school, nearing the end of your training.

TOM MYERS: Yeah, that was a really, really stressful time in my life to go that far to get to my senior year and just feel disenchanted and I thought I made the wrong decision. I was on the wrong path. You know, it's kind of like hiking in Grand Canyon, you know, if you go down a certain route or trail and you keep hoping that the destination will be worth the pain of the journey. As I got to the end, I realized that I really wasn't happy. You know, I struggled with what to do and, yeah, I really seriously considered leaving. And, fortunately, it seems like it was fate, but life had a different plan for me. Maybe it was destiny or, you know, providence, but it sure worked out well to end up at Grand Canyon, it changed my life.

GILGER: Right, so you end up as the doctor at the Grand Canyon training under someone who became sort of your mentor. And doing both of these things, right, like becoming someone who can live and be immersed in the Canyon in a way that it sounds like you always wanted to be, but also becoming a doctor and doing medical treatment there. Did it feel like at the time, like this, this has to be the path I take, this was meant to be? 

MYERS: It did almost instantly. My attitude went 180 degrees to the other direction. I told my wife, even months within that job, I considered myself the happiest doctor on the planet. This is the greatest doctor job on Earth.

GILGER: But it wasn't like it was all easy, like Annette sort of was getting at there, like this was not all adventure and fun, like you were working in, this is the quote from from Annette's piece, like treating patients in one of the most environmentally hazardous landscapes in the United States. What was it like? 

MYERS: Well, I think the hardest part for me was the call, for sure, myself and my physician colleague, my partner, we were on call every other night for emergencies, so we'd see patients during the day, you know, for appointments and urgent care and emergencies and that night we would flip flop the call and, you know, I was surprised by how many emergencies would come through the clinic and some of them, you know, life-threatening. That was really, really hard.

But, you know, I just felt so energized about being a doctor there and partly because I think the patients are all the, also the best patients you could ask for. That definitely helped buffer some of the stress and, you know, really difficult times in the middle of the night, handling somebody with a heart attack, for example. It just, it helped buoy that up.

GILGER: Yeah. Annette, I want to turn to you because you mentioned this sort of at the beginning. There's this interesting thing that comes up in the piece, but that you both already, I think have mentioned here, which is like the beauty, the love of the Grand Canyon that people like you clearly have, but also like this inherent danger in it. Like, do you think that that is something you're able to reconcile in your work? 

MCGIVNEY: Yes, I feel like it's a respect that people in Flagstaff and at Grand Canyon that work for the National Park, any dedicated hiker and backpacker, you know, that goes into the Canyon regularly has a deep respect for the Canyon and the dangers that it can have compared to like the tourist who's never been hiking in Grand Canyon and they go for the first time and they're, they're kind of naive about it. And so, there is this awareness and respect of the dangers that you're in the most beautiful place in the world, but it can also kill you.

And Tom and I have friends who died, you know, over the last couple of decades in the Canyon, through accidents or, you know, they just made the wrong decision on river trips and backpacking trips and you know, I feel like Tom is more aware of that than anyone.

GILGER: Yeah, let me, let me turn that to you, Tom, because this is probably the tension that you got asked about a lot. I'm guessing when your, when your first book came out, the "Over the Edge" book about death in Grand Canyon, right? Like, you're literally documenting every death that you can in the Canyon, but at the same time trying to guide people on how to do it right so that they can enjoy it.

And Annette writes this in the piece that you seem to be, you know, okay to take a risk or two here and there when you're doing your own adventuring in the Canyon, right? 

MYERS: Yes, I like to think my risks are, you know, calculated based on experience. But, yeah, I think that the thing that grabs your attention is, you know, accidental death and we all have a sort of a morbid fascination with the topic. And if you can get somebody's attention by presenting, say, a tragic accident and then hold that attention and slip in some life-saving lessons that were learned from the accident. You know, that there's an old saying within the EMS world that it's the same old accidents, just new faces.

And it's true in Grand Canyon, you know, a lot of the mechanisms for dying are the same, and they're new faces. They are people who often overestimate their ability and underestimate the wilderness, which is just, you know, a lethal combination.

GILGER: Let me back up just for a moment and ask you both what you love about it, right? Like, cause you're talking about the hazards, the things that you've seen there, the, the difficulties, the challenges, the danger, right? But, but clearly, I mean, this is something you both really love. Annette start there. Like, what, why did you move to Flagstaff, start becoming one of these hikers in the Grand Canyon? 

MCGIVNEY: I just love being in the Canyon and feeling so small. It's just like hitting the reset button. On my, you know, emotional state to be in this like spectacular place that's so wild and beautiful, and I'm just this little tiny dot in it. And the way it affects my perspective about life, it's sort of like it sustains me. So I, you know, if I'm away from the Canyon for too long. Then that perspective like starts to become, you know, a distant memory. So I feel like I better get back in there and, and, hit the reset button again.

GILGER: What about you, Tom? What do you love about Grand Canyon? 

MYERS: I just chose when I, when I was young, I was like, well, I really want to know a landscape intimately, and this is it. I just made a decision that I wanted to know it and experience and I, I think to quote John Denver, you know, really, it, it fills up my senses, you know, my sight, my vision, what I hear, what I feel, what I touch. I just love the physical challenge of getting in there and pushing myself and to see what I'm made of emotionally, physically. I do know my limits, but, you know, like I said too, I can't get enough. I just need to keep returning there and I'm just so excited that I still have that opportunity and I have the help to go in there and explore it.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.

Lauren Gilger, host of KJZZ's The Show, is an award-winning journalist whose work has impacted communities large and small, exposing injustices and giving a voice to the voiceless and marginalized.
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