Today’s Scalding Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
While fishing at Yellowstone National Park just north of West Thumb on August 14, 1935, Glenn LaRue Howard, 16, of Max, Nebraska, became separated from the rest of his party but continued to fish alone. Somehow he tumbled into a rather deep hot spring to a six-foot depth. It must have been difficult and painful to pull himself out, but the youth did it. He then wandered into a timbered area in search of other party members, was found half an hour after his scalding plunge. The hot spring that Howard fell into was located about two hundred yards north of King Geyser. A note in the naturalists’ log stated that his skin peeled off from his neck to his toes. Given first aid at West Thumb, he was sent by ambulance to Mammoth accompanied by his parents. With burns covering ninety-five percent of his body, he died the next day at the Mammoth hospital.
A geyser beside Yellowstone Lake
Culled from: Death In Yellowstone
Ghastly!
One of my favorite books is Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective’s Scrapbook. It is exactly what it says it is: a bizarre and oft-disturbing scrapbook collected over the years by Los Angeles area police detective Jack Huddleston, whose career spanned from 1921 to the early 1950’s.
Here’s a grim photo culled from the scrapbook:
Miss Maravene Terry burned to death caused by smoking a cigarette in bed. 1922 No Highland Ave Apt 16, 12-19-42.
I was able to find an article about this incident (from the December 20, 1942 issue of the Los Angeles Times):
Amazingly, per Google Maps, the building appears to still be there.
I’m assuming, nay HOPING, he wasn’t trying to fish in a hot spring. I’m all for saving work and time, but really, I think it’s a bit too much to expect to catch already-cooked fish.