A young Washington woman suffered burns to most of her body when she tried to pull her dog out of a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park.
The 20-year-old, whose name or hometime were not identified, was traveling with her dog and her father when they stopped Monday in the vicinity of Fountain Flat Drive south of Madison Junction, a park release said Tuesday.
When they got out of their vehicle to look around, the dog jumped out of the car and into Maiden's Grave Spring, a simmering spring named for the nearby grave of Mattie Culver, who died in 1889 during childbirth at the Marshall Hotel that once stood in the area.
The father pulled his daughter out of the spring and drove her to West Yellowstone, Montana, for treatment, the park release said. Yellowstone rangers and Hebgen Basin Rural Fire District crews provided initial care to the woman, who sustained burns from her feet to her shoulders, at West Yellowstone. She was then transported to the Burn Center at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center, the release said.
No further information on the woman's condition was known. The father managed to pull the dog out of the spring and planned to take it to a veterinarian, the release added.
According to The Geysers of Yellowstone by T. Scott Bryan, Maiden's Grave Spring is "a gently boiling pool surrounded by a log rail fence." It lies near the west side of the Fire Hole River.
This is the second significant injury in one of the park's thermal areas this year, accoridng to the release. The first occurred in September at Old Faithful, when a 19-year-old woman from Rhode Island suffered second- and third-degree burns to 5 percent of her body. In 2020, a three-year-old suffered second degree-thermal burns to the lower body and back while running down a trail near the Fountain Freight Road and falling into a thermal area. Early in 2020 year a woman who illegally entered the park while it was closed due to the Covid pandemic fell into a thermal feature at Old Faithful while backing up and taking photos.
In September 2019, a man suffered severe burns after falling into thermal water near the cone of Old Faithful Geyser. In June 2017, a man sustained severe burns after falling in a hot spring in the Lower Geyser Basin. In June 2016, a man left the boardwalk and died after slipping into a hot spring in Norris Geyser Basin. In August 2000, one person died and two people received severe burns from falling into a hot spring in the Lower Geyser Basin.
Comments
That woman is in the hospital with serious burns to most of her body she almost gave her life for the pup. Truth is they made a mistake, an accident happened, have a little empathy.
This is a place I would never visit. You couldn't pay me to visit it, and I'm sure it's a wonderful place to visit for some, but I'd rather not take chances with my life or the life of my loved ones. Especially because my family is not good at following rules. If my son were ever taken there, it's because I'm dead (but I'd haunt the living crap out of the person who took him)
No. Nope. Are you sure this is a park, and not a death trap? They shouldn't be easily confused, but I think this may be one of those rare instances.
Thank you for thinking of those injured. Not just how they were injured!
The whole dog thing is out of control
I tend trails in the northeast parks. People have been flooding state and national parks with little understanding of and thus little preparation for what lies ahead on their "visit to the wilds".
The worst result is that people get seriously injured or die.
The usual outcome is that the areas are polluted with modern refuse and feces (human and dog), delicate plants are trampled and destroyed creating erosion and damaging habitat, animals are forced to leave creating a chain of ecosystem destruction.
All because we cling to a late 19th century idea of the natural world that supports the notion that we are entitled to dominate, take from and exploit the world around for our own pleasure and amusement.
Strong science education with a focus on 20th and 21st century ecological science would help cure this, but we insist on allowing christian fanatics to hold back our social progress.
How people behave in and perceive their natural world tells the results.
I would counter that many people of all genders make this mistake. Old men young men, young women, old women. My personal experience has been that middle aged men are most often likely to neglect safety.
Doesn't it strike anyone odd that there are so many occursences of this nature?
It all comes back to the type if society we have evolved into.
I want what I want, it's not my fault, I don't have to follow the rules.
When people act like adults and follow the rules then we wouldn't need to have this conversation.
wait....it's not a good idea to bring children to a National park? Parents who fail to teach their children how to respect nature should never be allowed in parks. However too many have their freakin phones in their face as kids and pets run amuck.