Hiker found near Maroon Bells died of hypothermia after fall, coroner reports
The Aspen Times
Jeffrey Bushroe, the hiker found dead in May near the Maroon Bells, died of hypothermia “hours after a tumble he took,” the Pitkin County Coroner’s Office announced Thursday.
Bushroe, 27, who was a soldier at Fort Carson, was found May 27 by another hiker. According a statement from deputy coroner Eric Hansen, Bushroe of Tucson, Arizona, died from “hypothermia hours after a tumble he took in the Grand Couloir at the Maroon Bells secondary to confusion from a brain injury.”
At the time of his death, the Coroner’s Office say Bushroe sustained “several visible injuries to his head and leg.”
His death has been ruled an accident.
Bushroe was found about 7 a.m. May 27 and believed to be hiking alone, Pitkin County Sheriff’s investigators said at the time.
Members of Mountain Rescue Aspen arrived on scene, which was about a half-mile south of Crater Lake, at 9:38 a.m. and declared Bushroe dead. He was brought out of the wilderness area about four hours later.
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