Friends, family baffled by death of Vegas educator

Thursday, July 15, 1999 | 10:31 a.m.

Nuria Serrat was fearless.

In the way she worked, in the way she played, Serrat gave it her all and then some.

As bilingual coordinator at Tom Williams Elementary School, Serrat's job was to help teachers work with their bilingual pupils. She also spent time with children in their classrooms and conducted after-school classes for their parents in English and cultural assimilation.

Parents frequently called on her for advice about how to raise their children or how to handle domestic problems. She even helped a battered mother of three find information about her legal rights and seek refuge in a local shelter.

Serrat pursued her hobbies with the same gusto. When she was a little girl in Spain, a teacher told her she'd never realize her dream of being a painter because she lacked talent.

A painting hanging in Serrat's Las Vegas home shows even a teacher can be wrong. Daffodils and little purple-blue blossoms peek from between slender, green leaves.

Like its artist, the painting is direct, honest and beautiful.

It hangs in the living room directly across from Serrat's treadmill, where for 45 minutes every morning she honed skills for her other love.

Hiking.

Serrat was really good at that.

That's why it's so hard for Serrat's friends to understand how she could embark on a four-day Grand Canyon hike the last weekend in June and fail to return alive.

A park visitor found the 46-year-old woman's body June 28 on the Tonto Trail about a mile west of Hermit Creek. Rangers say Serrat's death was heat-related, but they'll know for sure when the autopsy is completed sometime this month.

Park rangers said Serrat apparently dropped her pack to save the effort of carrying it to the creek, where they assumed she planned to fill the four, empty one-liter water bottles found near her body.

"She didn't have a signal mirror, but other than that she seemed pretty well prepared," Sandi Perl, of the park's South Rim office, said. "She had done this before. She'd had several permits on file with us." And so the question remains for Serrat's friends and family: How could this happen to someone so well-prepared? So experienced? So loved?

"Nuria was an electric, exuberant and genuine person who brought a smile to the face of anyone in her presence," said Holly Kelso Gomez, a Williams teacher and close friend.

"She was very honest, very kind and very considerate. She was a salt-of-the-earth type person," added Liz Parker, another teacher who often rented Serrat's spare bedroom to avoid a 90-minute commute home.

Maybe Serrat miscalculated the weight of her pack or her water supply. Maybe the canyon floor's 110-degree heat proved too much this time.

Maybe these things just happen.

When it comes to traveling in the wilderness, being prepared and experienced doesn't guarantee survival. It simply ups the odds, Perl said. Sometimes good skiers hit trees. Sometimes good climbers fall. Sometimes good hikers don't come back.

"Sometimes the heat just wins," Perl said. "You have to hike on the canyon's terms. But when this happens to an experienced person, your heart just breaks because you know they've read all the books and prepared for the trip."

Serrat was prepared to go wherever her journeys led. Her friends said she often talked about what a wonderful life she had, how much she loved it and how she wasn't afraid of the day that could bring it to an end.