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Author Topic: Death at Yellowstone  (Read 757 times)

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Offline Bastet

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Death at Yellowstone
« on: November 18, 2016, 10:26:33 PM »

IT IS A MYSTERY WHY ANYONE would dive headfirst into a Yellowstone hot spring merely to save a dog, but that is precisely what happened on July 20, 1981. David Allen Kirwan, 24, of La Canada, California, and his friend Ronald Ratliff, 25, of Thousand Oaks, parked their truck at Yellowstone’s Fountain Paint Pot parking lot at around one o’clock that afternoon.
While the men looked at the hot springs, Ratliff’s dog Moosie, a large mastiff or Great Dane, escaped from the vehicle and jumped into nearby Celestine Pool, a hot spring later measured at 202 degrees Fahrenheit. The dog began yelping, and someone nearby quipped, “Oh, look, the poor thing!” Kirwan and Ratliff rushed to the spring and stood on the edge of it.
Ratliff and another bystander both saw that Kirwan was preparing to go into the spring, and the bystander yelled, “Don’t go in there!” Kirwan yelled back, “Like hell I won’t!” Several more people yelled not to go in, but Kirwan took two steps into the pool then dove headfirst into the boiling water. One witness described it as a flying, swimming-pool-type dive.
Visitor Earl Welch of Annistow, Alabama, saw Kirwan actually swim to the dog and attempt to take it to shore, go completely underwater again, then release the dog, and begin trying to climb out. Ronald Ratliff pulled Kirwan from the spring, sustaining second-degree burns to his feet. Welch saw Kirwan appear to stagger backward, so the visitor hastened to him and said, “Give me your hand.” Kirwan offered his hand, and Welch directed, “Come to the sidewalk.”
As they moved slowly toward the walk, Kirwan managed to say, “That was stupid. How bad am I?” Welch tried to reassure him, and before they reached the walkway Kirwan again spoke softly. “That was a stupid thing I did.”
Welch was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that he was walking with a corpse. He could see that Kirwan’s entire body was badly burned, as the skin was already peeling off. It seemed to Welch that Kirwan was blind, for his eyes appeared totally white. Another man ran up and began to remove one of Kirwan’s shoes, and the men watched horrified as the skin came off with it. “Don’t do that!” said Welch, and Kirwan responded very tiredly, “It doesn’t matter.” Near the spring, rangers found two large pieces of skin shaped like human hands.
Kirwan experienced third-degree burns over 100 percent of his body including his entire head. He was taken to the clinic at Old Faithful, where a burn specialist who was coincidentally on duty could do little for him other than to pump in intravenous fluids at a high rate.
Bob Carnes, a ranger who saw him at the clinic, remembers thinking that Kirwan did not have a chance for survival. “He was blind and most of his skin was coming off.” Tony Sisto, Old Faithful’s acting subdistrict ranger, was also there, and he agreed. “He had no vision,” said Sisto, “but was fully conscious. He talked amiably with his caretakers, in no pain, asking the nurses to save his belt while they cut off what remained of his clothes.” Ronald Ratliff’s dog died in the pool and was not rescued.
Oils from its body later made the hot spring have small eruptions. Kirwan died the following morning in a Salt Lake City hospital. In the men’s truck, rangers found the park’s warning literature and pamphlets. Kirwan and Ratliff had not read any of them.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2016, 10:30:55 PM by Cleocatra »
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Offline Fun With Matches

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Re: Death at Yellowstone
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2016, 05:30:01 AM »
How horrific.  >:( He was stupid. They shouldn't have taken their dog either, but then they didn't know anything about the place. How horrible. :(
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Offline Bastet

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Re: Death at Yellowstone
« Reply #2 on: November 22, 2016, 01:28:01 PM »
Man dissolves in acidic water after he falls into a Yellowstone hot spring

(CNN)A trip to one of the nation's natural wonders ended in an unnatural tragedy.

A 23-year-old Oregon man essentially dissolved inside a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming after he accidentally fell into it.

The bizarre incident happened back in June, when Colin Nathaniel Scott went to the park with his sister to find a place to "hot pot."
According to a recently released report from park officials, Scott and his sister went to an unauthorized area near the Norris Geyser.
"They were specifically moving in that area for a place that they could potentially get into and soak," Deputy Chief Ranger Lorant Veress told CNN affiliate KULR. "I think they call it hot potting."
Scott had reached down to check the temperature of a spring when he slipped and fell into it. Rescuers later found Scott's body inside the pool, but couldn't retrieve it because of a lightning storm in the area. When they came back the next day, no remains were found beneath the spring's churning, acidic waters.
"In a very short order, there was a significant amount of dissolving," Veress said.
The parks' geyers and springs are acidic because they are fed by thermal water deep underground that picks up sulfuric acid as it rises to the surface. The sulfuric acid is produced by microorganisms that break down hydrogen sulfide in rocks and soil.
Scott's sister was recording on her cell phone when he fell in, but the park service won't release the video.
Veress stressed the importance for park visitors to obey all warning signs.
"Because (Yellowstone) is wild and it hasn't been overly altered by people to make things a whole lot safer, it's got dangers," he said. "And a place like Yellowstone, which is set aside because of the incredible geothermal resources that are here, all the more so."



http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/17/us/yellowstone-man-dissolved-trnd/index.html

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Offline Icequeen

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Re: Death at Yellowstone
« Reply #3 on: November 22, 2016, 04:35:58 PM »
 :P

I used to live in a state park...every year they would hand out pamphlets, they would tell you in person upon entering the park, they would post bigger signs..."don't wade in the falls, the current is strong, you can get swept over", "don't climb over the fence, the edge is unstable, you can fall in the gorge, you will die". 

Every, single, year...there was always at least one.

Seriously I thought they should have had placards with pictures and names that read "this waterfall/overlook has claimed blank, blank lives as of today...do you want to be next?"

People seem to identify with the risk factor better when they see a scorecard...some just  seem to think you're giving them a line of bullshit.

Offline Bastet

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Re: Death at Yellowstone
« Reply #4 on: November 22, 2016, 05:37:09 PM »
They should include gore pics on the signs to scare people into behaving. Melting skin or skin than fell off like a glove, etc.
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Re: Death at Yellowstone
« Reply #5 on: November 22, 2016, 06:15:56 PM »
:P

I used to live in a state park...every year they would hand out pamphlets, they would tell you in person upon entering the park, they would post bigger signs..."don't wade in the falls, the current is strong, you can get swept over", "don't climb over the fence, the edge is unstable, you can fall in the gorge, you will die". 

Every, single, year...there was always at least one.

Seriously I thought they should have had placards with pictures and names that read "this waterfall/overlook has claimed blank, blank lives as of today...do you want to be next?"

People seem to identify with the risk factor better when they see a scorecard...some just  seem to think you're giving them a line of bullshit.

I have one like that at the end of my street.  Instead of a waterfall though they have a tombolo (think rocky sand bar) that goes out to an island,  it's only exposed fully at low tide, is a half mile long, and has deep water with strong currents on either side.  Didn't have any fatalities this year but we usually have at least one, and one year there was three.  It's a nice hike out and back the mistake people make is trying to make it back after the water starts covering it anything over your knees and the currents will take you off your feet
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Offline Gopher Gary

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Re: Death at Yellowstone
« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2016, 06:27:59 PM »
They should include gore pics

Actually when I read the first post, I wondered if you had been reading bestgore again, and also wondered if there were photos.  :lol1:
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