Las Vegas tourist died in heat on way to Grand Canyon. His family is suing

Stuck with 38 people in a boiling, broken-down bus headed for the Grand Canyon, 66-year-old Jeffery Volkar died from heat stress on what was supposed to be a family trip.

Now, almost two years later, Volkar’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Clark County District Court against the owner of Las Vegas-based Canyon Tours, Gray Line Las Vegas, American Transportation Systems and a bus driver. None of the defendants could be reached for comment.

A law firm representing Volkar’s wife, two daughters, son-in-law and grandson claims the defendants failed to inspect the bus properly, dispatch a replacement vehicle in an appropriate time or instruct passengers on how to adequately deal with the heat.

Tour leaders had no contingency plan and little awareness of how to deal with a heat-related emergency, the lawsuit alleges.

“As a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ negligence, each of the Passenger Plaintiffs was subjected to intolerable conditions for a period exceeding three hours in a non-air-conditioned, poorly ventilated bus, with no access to shade or relief,” the complaint alleges.

The law firm representing Volkar’s family, Shook and Stone, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

A retired bricklayer

Volkar, according to an obituary, was a retired bricklayer and longtime member of the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Local 9, a union in Pennsylvania. His family said he enjoyed “hunting, fishing, and watching his favorite Westerns.”

The complaint, referencing a death investigation by the Arizona Department of Health Services, declares that Volkar died of hyperthermia, or an abnormally high body temperature.

A spokesperson from the Arizona Department of Health Services declined to confirm Volkar’s cause of death, pointing to Arizona’s status as a “closed records” state that prevents the release of personal records such as birth or death certificates.

Heat-related deaths spike

According to state data, extreme heat in Arizona contributed to the deaths of 990 people in 2023, the year Volkar died. Of those, heat was a primary cause in 660 cases.

Southern Nevada has seen an uptick in heat-related deaths, too, with 309 heat-related deaths in 2023 and 527 in 2024, according to the Clark County coroner’s office. Three people have already died this year in the Las Vegas area because of the heat.

Experts say heat-related deaths are undercounted throughout the country, and are likely to increase as human-caused climate change roils temperatures throughout the Desert Southwest.

The lawsuit centering on Volkar, seeking unspecified damages, is one of three wrongful death suits filed recently in Southern Nevada in which alleged negligence led to someone’s death in the heat.

Another suit alleges a Las Vegas hospital improperly discharged a woman experiencing alcohol withdrawals, leading to her heat-related death in the parking lot. A separate suit was filed against the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority, alleging it failed to fix an 82-year-old woman’s air conditioning in her apartment.

As of Friday afternoon, the defendants had not filed a response to the initial complaint from Volkar’s family.

Contact Alan Halaly at [email protected]. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.