A 48-year-old man visiting Slide Rock State Park with his son and several companions died on the afternoon of Saturday, July 27, from an apparent heart attack, the Sedona Fire District and Coconino County Sheriff’s Office stated on Monday, July 29.

“This individual did jump in the water, it was below the bridge,” CCSO spokesman Jon Paxton said. “[He] gets out of the water, starts complaining to his family about chest pains, and then apparently at that point has a heart attack, or was in the process of having it, and then it came full on and that’s when medics were called.”

Paxton said that alcohol did not appear to have been a contributing factor.

SFD received the call around 3 p.m. First responders arrived at 3:09 p.m. and took over from Arizona State Parks and Trails staff, who were administering an automatic external defibrillator and CPR. SFD had just completed another call at Slide Rock at 2:56 p.m. and already had a crew in the vicinity.

“Coordinating with our medical director, we performed lifesaving measures for approximately 50 minutes, where per medical direction and protocols through the hospital, the patient was pronounced deceased,” SFD Risk Reduction Division Chief Dori Booth said.

CCSO received the call around 3:15 p.m., but “with traffic it took us about an hour to get down there,” Paxton said.

“By the time we got there, obviously medics were working on him,” Paxton said. “Once it was determined [that the man had died] we contacted the medical examiner and the deceased was removed to the medical examiner’s office and they will obviously determine the exact cause. But right now it appears to be a heart attack but the medical examiner will have the final say.”

The medical examiner arrived around 5 p.m.