DENVER (KDVR) – Two hunters who were found dead in southern Colorado last week were killed by a lightning strike, the coroner confirmed Monday.
Elk hunters Andrew Porter, 25, from Asheville, North Carolina, and Ian Stasko, 25, from Salt Lake City, were reported missing in the San Juan National Forest Wilderness Area on Sept. 13. A “massive search” involving crews in the air and on the ground lasted nearly a week before the family reported that the two were found dead last Thursday.
The Conejos County Coroner’s Office told Nexstar’s KDVR that preliminary findings from the autopsy conducted on Monday show that the two were killed by a lightning strike.
The coroner’s office said last week that there were no visible signs of trauma and no signs of foul play.
Bridget Murphy, the fiancée of Porter, said in a post on Facebook on Monday that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time as a storm rolled in.
“It is OFFICIAL, that a lightning strike to the ground took them in an instant. They didn’t do anything wrong, they didn’t feel fear or pain. He was just trying to get back to the car as storms rolled in on Friday – September 12. It was out of everyone’s hands, and I am so grateful we found them so they can be at peace. He was an experienced outdoorsman, who was in the wrong spot at the wrong time,” Murphy wrote in the post.
The two men were found about two miles away from the Rio De Los Pinos Trail Head, the Conejos County Sheriff’s Office said. Families told KDVR that the men were seen on a camera near their vehicle at the trailhead on Sept. 11 and that other hunters reported seeing them heading back out from the trailhead on Sept. 12.
In recent years, Colorado has been known to have one of the highest rates of lightning deaths and injuries in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Over 170 people joined the search effort, including several search and rescue teams and volunteers who traveled from places including Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Wyoming and even the East Coast.
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