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Tourist dies after car gets stuck in mud in Death Valley

By CNN

(CNN) — A French tourist has died after he and his traveling companion became stranded while driving through California’s Death Valley in sweltering temperatures.

Pierre Michel Formosa, 68, and the second Frenchman – who has not been named – were driving on West Side Road on August 17 when their vehicle got stuck in mud, according to a statement from the National Park Service.

With no passing vehicles to call on for help, the pair began walking across the salt flats in search of assistance.

But with temperatures hitting 116 degrees Fahrenheit (46.6 degrees Celsius) that day, Formosa stopped after about 1.3 miles.

His companion carried on until he met a passing motorist and then reported the incident at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center.

Minutes later, a search and rescue operation was launched by National Park Service rangers and an Inyo County deputy.

A helicopter from the California Highway Patrol joined the search and found Formosa later that afternoon, officials said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

“Our deepest condolences are with the family and friends of the visitor who died,” said Death Valley National Park Superintendent Mike Reynolds in the statement.

“This is a heartbreaking reminder of how quickly conditions here can turn dangerous. Death Valley is an extraordinary place, but its heat, distances, and remoteness can be dangerous, regardless of experience. We’re grateful to everyone who took part in the search, and our thoughts are with his loved ones,” Reynolds added.

A coroner for Inyo County will determine the cause and manner of Formosa’s death.

An extreme heat warning is currently in place for Death Valley, which is the lowest, hottest and driest portion of the North American continent and the United States’ largest national park outside of Alaska.

Temperatures are expected to reach up to 118 degrees Fahrenheit (47.8 degrees Celsius) between Tuesday and Friday, according to the warning issued by the National Weather Service.

Officials are reminding visitors that cell phone service is “limited or nonexistent” in the vast and remote park and that “emergency help can be hours away.”

Guidance includes carrying ample water and supplies, checking road and weather conditions in advance and taking an alternative means of communication, such as a satellite communicator or emergency beacon.

“If your vehicle becomes disabled, staying with it is often the safest choice. It provides shade and shelter, and it’s far easier for search teams to spot than a person on foot in open terrain,” the National Park Service’s guidance adds.

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Rage yoga? Grief cycle? Workouts are starting to match emotional states

By CNN
Before even beginning their workout, nearly every participant in Sylvia Borowska’s recent Liftonic class was crying. The instructor asked each of the 30 participants to grab the heaviest weight they could pick up. Pretend it’s on your shoulders or on your back or in your chest, Borowska told them.“Do as many deadlifts as you can for the amount of time that the person you’ve lost has passed,” Borowska said she told the class. “That can represent either the months or years you’ve been grieving.”Borowska partnered with Grief, Sweat & Tears to offer that class catering to grieving New Yorkers. Founded in December 2025, GST is an initiative that hosts pop-up workout classes across the city each month. It’s “where grief meets fitness,” read the Instagram post announcing the $30 class.Borowska has taught Liftonic weight-training classes for five years, but her pop-up grief class was the first time she opened a session by sharing how she lost her mother to lung disease.“Let’s keep going,” Borowska urged on the night of the class. “Grief is heavy, but we’re stronger than that, so let’s prove to ourselves and each other how strong we are.”A workout class mixing sweat and tears isn’t a rare event. Rage cycling sessions, anxiety yoga and dozens of similar fitness initiatives have gained traction in recent years, inviting people to choose workout classes based on experiences and emotions.Do these classes actually help people process grief, rage and heartbreak? Dr. Ryan Martin, a psychologist and author, said there isn’t much research yet available on the topic.“It’s not unusual for pop culture to be a little bit further ahead than psychologists are when it comes to advocating some of these things,” Martin said.Finding communityAmid the rise of pickleball tournaments and run clubs, fitness activities are increasingly becoming a venue for social connection. The social networking app Meetup reports more than 3 million members registered across about 2,200 fitness groups globally.The relationships built within these emotion-centered classes reflect another way adults can make friends. But the shared emotion offers participants opportunity for a more specific connection.Community is one of the most valuable parts of a workout class like this, said Martin, who is dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay.For someone searching for a grief community, a grief or trauma support group might seem intimidating. Walking into a grief weight-lifting class, though — that could be an easier task.“This might provide a community where you know you’re connecting with other people’s similar experiences, but you’re not just doing it over that experience, which could be too much,” Martin said.Betsy Kaplan, 29, had that idea in mind when she founded Grief, Sweat & Tears. After she lost her father to suicide eight years ago, Kaplan didn’t have a “grief space” at home in New York. She wanted to create a “no-pressure zone,” where no one felt obligated to share their grief stories.“We’re here to work out,” Kaplan said. “We’re here to meet people who get it and just make new connections.”At an early GST event, Kaplan connected with Jake Montiel, who quickly became one of her best friends. Montiel lost his mother three years ago when he was 30. As part of GST tradition, participants say the name of the person they’ve lost at the start of each workout class. Montiel said he was petrified the first time he shared his grief out loud, but he found community in the young woman standing next to him, who’d lost her mother.They clicked immediately, but they also had the workout to bond over. “It’s really an honest, open safe space to basically open up and get that weight off your chest just from saying those powerful words of who you’re grieving,” he said.Over the past six months, about 400 people have participated in a GST class, according to Kaplan.A workout for every emotionIn Westminster, Colorado, Elisa Thurston held her engagement party at E-motion Fitness, an event space that’s branded as part rage room, part gym, part sanctuary. Participants smash paint-filled glass bottles against the walls, one of which they’ve decorated with an emotion they’re feeling, such as rage or fear. Trainers then lead participants in a 45-minute full-body workout before the class moves into another room fashioned as a recovery space with art and quiet music.Thurston wanted her family to experience a session — and get out last- minute wedding jitters, she said. After all, the class was her sanctuary through a breakup, during feelings of inadequacy and when she was frustrated with work.She needed “to sit and reflect with a group of people that I know care about me, and to be able to talk about that together, and then to be able to express that in a really fun and cathartic way,” Thurston said. “Talk therapy is great to talk through things with somebody, but I do feel like this workout class is just a different way of engaging my whole self in that experience.”Exercise isn’t the one-size-fits-all solutionParticipants often describe “releasing” negative emotions during a workout class, but Martin, the Wisconsin-based psychologist, cautions against saying this. The emotion isn’t going anywhere.“It keeps the heart elevated at a time when the goal is typically to decrease the heart rate,” he explained, referring to the physical activity. “It keeps your muscles tense at a time when the goal is often to decrease that muscle tension.”While the concept of choosing to box or run when you’re on the brink of an emotional breakdown might seem like a positive outlet, it isn’t for everyone, according to Martin.“Be wary. One of the things that cardiovascular activity does is it simulates panic in a lot of ways,” Martin said. “For a person who is prone to panic disorders or has difficulty with panic, simulating that in some settings might be dangerous.”Among refugees who’ve experienced significant trauma, a 10-week physical activity program led to “significant reductions” in PTSD, depression and anxiety, a March study found. Yet researchers still don’t understand specifics around the effects of exercise on people in adverse emotional states.“What we don’t know yet is exactly why it worked so well — whether it was the exercise itself, feeling safe and supported while exercising, connecting with other people, or some combination of all of those things,” Martin said of the study.Those considering emotion-centered workout classes should ensure they are able to opt out of a workout whenever they need to, said Dr. Ethan Kross, professor of psychology and management at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He said he encourages people to “self-experiment.”How to deal with emotionsWhat’s Martin’s biggest piece of advice? Don’t just rely on workout classes to process adverse emotions. If you’re dealing with profound trauma or grief, work with therapists or in group therapy, he said.There are other ways to process negative emotions, Martin said. In addition to therapy and exercise, he recommends speaking to your doctor about medication, spending time in nature and reading books about grief.Kross said he advises participants to first recognize there are multiple tools to deal with their experiences. If you’re someone who engages in negative self-talk, think about how you’d talk to a friend in the same situation, he said.He also suggests “adopting a more detached perspective on what’s happening, becoming an observer, a fly on the wall, thinking about what’s happening to you from a distance.”Kross said the community component of a workout class is “just the tip of the iceberg.” These classes could do more to help people process their emotions, but there isn’t much science informing the class workout structure, he said. For instance, venting anger might seem like a good idea, but it could sustain it, a 2024 study by The Ohio State University found.In Borowska’s Liftonic class though, it’s a Friday night — and no one is concerned about the science. Participants gathered outside the studio, mixing laughs at weekend plans with the tears of grief and deadlift-induced sweat.Montiel and Kaplan, who both attended the session, carried the class’ momentum into a local bar.“I now have a boatload of friends who, if I’m having a ‘grief moment,’ I can pick up the phone and call. … I can ask if they want to meet for coffee, and I’m seeing it with other people, too,” Kaplan said. “It sucks that we’re all in this club, but it’s really great to know we have this.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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