Today’s Hazardous Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
On June 18, 1970, 9-year-old Christine Fuentes of La Puente, California hiked the Mist Trail to the top of Vernal Fall in Yosemite National Park with her mother, 30-year-old Yolanda Fuentes. Once at the overlook, the two metamorphosed into classic triumphant tourists.
With a family party of six, the mother-daughter pair climbed over the guardrail and past the signs posted to warn visitors of the hazards beyond. They scrambled closer to the water’s edge. Amazingly, the seven people now waded into the river to sit on various “island” rocks or to cool off in the water during June’s high runoff – and to pose for photos. Again, they did all of these things while in the Merced, a mere sixty or so feet upstream of the brink of Vernal Fall.
Of several nearby onlookers, Michael A. Fernandez yelled from shore, “Do you know what the railing is for? It’s so kids don’t go over the falls!”
Where the voice of reason comes from…
A woman in the wading party stared at Fernandez, but she did not otherwise respond to him. A moment later another of the women who had been standing in midriver tried to shoot a photo. Her hat fell off. The current instantly propelled it downstream. Little Christine scrambled across the flow to retrieve the dropped hat. Instantly, the river gripped her and carried her toward the waterfall. Within seconds, Yolanda, Christine’s mother, began stumbling down the river to chase down Christine. She too lost her footing and was swept helplessly toward the brink.
As witnesses behind the guardrail and others safely dotting the shoreline watched in horror, the Merced swept the lost hat over Vernal Fall. Next it carried Christine – as she frantically tried to clamber back toward shore – into a death plunge. A mere second or two later Yolanda too vanished over the edge. Her decomposed body was discovered sixty-two days later, on August 19. Young Christine Fuentes’ body was never found.
Culled from: Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite
Civil War Injury Du Jour!
Surgeon General’s Office
Army Medical Museum
Photograph No. 189
Private Jacob Eggerstedt, McRae’s Battery, was wounded at the Battle of Valverde, New Mexico, February 21st, 1862 by a ball which fractured his right humerus. The arm was put in splints, there was no comminution to warrant an operation for the extraction of fragments or resection. The patient recovered from the injury; but with pseudoarthrosis [unsuccessful fusion of the bone]. He visited the museum in the summer of 1867, and his photograph was taken.
Culled from: Orthopaedic Injuries of the Civil War