HughPickens.com [hughpickens.com] writes:
AP reports that the grisly death of Colin Nathaniel Scott who
left a boardwalk and fell into a high-temperature, acidic spring [latimes.com] in Yellowstone National Park offers a sobering reminder that visitors need to follow park rules. Scott and his sister had traveled about 225 yards off the boardwalk when he slipped and fell into the hot spring in the
Norris Geyser Basin [nps.gov]. Officials said the two had left the boardwalk to get closer to some of the basin's thermal features. After Scott's sister reported the fall, rangers navigated over the highly fragile crust of the geyser basin to try to recover his body but halted the effort "due to the extreme nature and futility of it all," says Charissa Reid. The death occurred in one of the hottest and most volatile areas of Yellowstone, where boiling water flows just beneath a thin rock crust and water temperatures there can reach 199 degrees, the boiling point for water at the park's high elevation. "It's sort of dumb, if I could be so blunt, to walk off the boardwalks not knowing what you're doing," says geologist Kenneth Sims. "They're
scofflaws [wikipedia.org], essentially, who look around and then head off the boardwalk."
At least 22 people are known to have died from hot spring-related injuries [yellowstonepark.com] in and around Yellowstone since 1890, park officials say. "This tragic event must remind all of us to follow the regulations and stay on boardwalks," says Yellowstone Supt. Dan Wenk.
Scott's body will not be recovered [ktla.com]. “Recovery efforts have been terminated in part because we have not been able to locate any remains, unfortunately,” says Morgan Warthin.
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