this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2024
562 points (98.1% liked)

News

23376 readers
1882 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

According to a National Park Service news release, the 42-year-old Belgian tourist was taking a short walk Saturday in the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in 123-degree heat when he either broke or lost his flip-flops, putting his feet into direct contact with the desert ground. The result: third-degree burns.

"The skin was melted off his foot," said Death Valley National Park Service Ranger Gia Ponce. "The ground can be much hotter — 170, 180 [degrees]. Sometimes up into the 200 range."

Unable to get out on his own and in extreme pain, the man and his family recruited other park visitors to help; together, the group carried him to the sand dunes parking lot, where park rangers assessed his injuries.

Though they wanted a helicopter to fly him out, helicopters can't generate enough lift to fly in the heat-thinned air over the hottest parts of Death Valley, officials said. So park rangers summoned an ambulance that took him to higher ground, where it was a cooler 109 degrees and he could then be flown out.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] cybervseas@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago (2 children)

So do we just need to close death valley or require permits in the summer or something? The safety issues seem to be compounding with the extreme heat.

[–] protist@mander.xyz 19 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I assume you have to pay a fee to enter Death Valley National Park, and like every National Park I assume the rangers at the entrance and signage all throughout warn you of potential dangers. You can easily get yourself in trouble at Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, or Big Bend National Parks, for example, if you don't take the risks seriously and make poor decisions.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 18 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sure but those other parks.. they aren't called "Deathstone" or "Death Mountain" or "Big Death"...

I feel like Death Valley is being very frank with you on the matter.

[–] protist@mander.xyz 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

A group of European-American pioneers got lost here in the winter of 1849-1850, while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California, giving Death Valley its grim name. Although only one of the group members died here, they all assumed that the valley would be their grave.

I bet more people have died at each of the other 3 parks than at Death Valley NP. Maybe there's data out there on that somewhere

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Interestingly, the park service have a very nice dashboard to look at this:

https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/mortality-data.htm

However, it doesn't give you the deaths per count of visitors.

This article claims Denali, to be the top park in deaths per capita.

https://www.backpacker.com/survival/the-10-most-dangerous-national-parks-in-america/

It looks like Death Valley is up there, but not the highest, due to motor vehicle accidents. This makes sense since going to death valley ends up just being a lot of time in the car.

[–] margaritox@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

There are no entrance stations in Death Valley. There’s a fee, but they sorta “trust you” to have paid in advance.

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 11 points 4 months ago

Rangers can do their best to inform visitors and provide necessary services for survival, but at the end of the day, safety is one's own responsibility.