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Missouri woman drowns at Glacier National Park

by The Associated Press
| June 20, 2010 9:30 AM

WEST GLACIER (AP) — A 62-year-old Missouri woman drowned after she fell from a bridge and was carried away by a fast-flowing creek in Glacier National Park.

Park officials say the body of Elizabeth Gray McNamara of Kansas City was recovered Saturday downstream from Virginia Falls, a full day after she fell in.

The officials say that according to a witness accounts, the woman and her husband were walking across the bridge around noon Friday when she slipped and fell about four feet into cold, swift Virginia Creek.

She was quickly carried away by the current and her husband lost sight of her. Authorities say the 40-degree water would have made it difficult to survive very long.

About 20 park staff and a helicopter crew searched the stream for the rest of the day but her body wasn't found until a dive team located it wedged beneath a bridge.