Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Meanwhile, in Yellowstone Park,

The Silly Season is already in full swing:


A woman who illegally entered Yellowstone National Park while it was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic was badly burned on Tuesday morning after falling into a thermal feature, a park official said.

The woman, who was not identified, was reportedly backing up while taking photos and fell into a hot springs or fumarole at Old Faithful.

"We do not know which thermal feature she fell in," said Linda Veress, park public information specialist in an email. "We do know that she suffered burns."



After falling into the thermal feature the woman drove north through the park before being stopped by park rangers about one mile south of Mammoth Hot Springs.

"Due to her injuries, she was life-flighted to the Burn Center at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center," Veress said. "This incident is under investigation."

Yellowstone has been closed to the public since March 30 in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak at the request of county health officials and the governors of Montana and Wyoming. Although there are plans to reopen the park with limited services, a date has not yet been set.



Last fall a man walking off a boardwalk was burned after falling into a hot springs. Cade Edmond Siemers sustained severe burns. In 2016 an Oregon man died after he reportedly tried to soak in a Yellowstone hot springs.

There are more than 10,000 thermal features in Yellowstone, from geysers and hot springs to steam vents and mudpots. In some of these the water temperature exceeds 400 degrees.

That's why park visitors are told to stay on boardwalks and not travel off trail in thermal areas.

How did she drive to old faithful? Are the roads open for through traffic?

I was there in 2016 when a young man fell in to a thermal and his body was unrecoverable and apparently dissolved by the acidic boiling water. He traveled off the board walks into the woods off the trail and fell through the crusty bank into a deep pool. Very sad. He had traveled there with his sister and was celebrating college graduation and prepping for grad school.

At least one of those thermals needs to be named "Darwin's Pool"!

Jerry

I’ve stood within a couple of feet from some other boiling ones further up the road. Looking down into them 8-10 ft deep just rolling. You’d be cooked off the bone before anyone could get help.

In Oregon, at Bagby Hot Springs a guy had a heart attack In one of the cedar tubs with the water inlet open. Paramedics called him Stu....

He did it to himself.

Some people just don't think that the warnings are either real or apply to them.

Seems like a classic "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" sort of thing.

My next door neighbor is the former (retired) assistant U.S. attorney for the state of Wyoming. He was the prosecutor that tried cases in Yellowstone. He has some good stories about dumb asses in the Park.

There is a book about Yellowstone and accidents. Something like Yellowstone deaths?