Yellowstone National Park officials have released new information about the 70-year-old man whose foot was found floating in a thermal pool last summer, although the details of his death remain unknown.
In July 2022, a Yellowstone National Park employee found what appears to be a partial human foot in a hot spring. The foot was still inside a shoe floating in the Abyss Pool, which is near the West Thumb Geyser Basin.
An investigation was initiated at the time to discover the identity of the victim. Now finally there is an answer.
Abyss Pool, located west of the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake, is 53 feet deep and the temperature is about 140 degrees Fahrenheit, park officials said. It is on the south side of the southern loop through the park.
Such hot springs, located throughout Yellowstone and similar volcanic areas, perform a vital geological function. Superheated water cools as it reaches the surface, sinks, and is replaced by hotter water from below. The circulation prevents the water from reaching the temperature needed to set off an eruption like happens with geysers in the park, according to the park’s website.
Yellowstone posts reminders throughout the park for visitors to stay on boardwalks and trails in thermal areas and to be careful around thermal features. The ground around such features is fragile and thin and falling into the hot springs could be fatal.
Now they have identified Il Hun Ro of Los Angeles as the latest victim. They said an investigation determined the “unwitnessed incident” took place on the morning of July 31 at Abyss Pool, and that foul play was not suspected.
The newly-released park documents shed new light as to what took place during the investigation and how officials came to their conclusions.
The man’s shoe was first reported to a tour guide by a visitor on Aug. 16, according to a park ranger’s report included in the documents. At the time, a park employee, whose name was redacted, “claimed to have ‘found this odd’ because he had pulled out two shoe soles out of the same pool in the past week.”
After arriving at the scene, officials began closing off the area to visitors, which included a nearby parking lot, per the documents. By the time witness statements and interviews had been completed, three vehicles remained parked in the area, although two were quickly claimed, according to the documents. The remaining car was registered to the victim, officials discovered. Inside the vehicle, a number of personal items were found that led them to the identity of the victim. But there was no suicide note.
This was not the first such incident. In 2016, Colin Nathaniel Scott’s body was dissolved when he fell in as he and his sister foolishly strayed from the boardwalk to go swimming in the hot spring.
He fell into the 200 degree water which is not only nearly boiling temperature but highly acidic as well.
The following day all attempts to retrieve his remains proved futile, as he had been dissolved by the lethal combination of heat and acid.
A “wellspring of geochemistry,” you “definitely can’t tell just by looking at them which ones will slow roast you and dissolve you alive” in what has sometimes been turned into sulfuric acid by Nature’s chemical experiments.
Yellowstone records show that at least 22 people have died in similar circumstances, now it appears that Il Hun Ro is the 23rd.
