Today’s Hot Potting Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Two of Yellowstone’s nineteen hot-spring deaths happened because young adults were attempting to “hot-pot” (swim) in hot springs. Both were park employees. The vast majority of the park’s hot springs are 50-100 degrees too hot for swimming.
On the evening of July 12, 1967, Brian Parsons, 20, of Nenuet, New York, an employee of the Yellowstone Park Company at Lake Lodge, decided to go on a late-night excursion with friends. They drove some 48 miles to the Nez Perce Creek area north of Old Faithful, and hiked up the creek in near darkness. The imprudent group did not secure a fire permit, nor did they even have a flashlight. Parsons and his friend, Ronald May, 18, of Cheyenne, Wyoming, wandered away from the main group to go swimming illegally in one of the hot springs. In the dark of around midnight, Parsons somehow fell or dove into a hot spring of around 180°F. May attempted to rescue him and sustained second degree burns to both of his legs. Parsons was covered with second and third degree burns over ninety percent of his body. He lived for days afterward in a Salt Lake City hospital, but finally died.
The same hot spring that killed Parsons also killed Donald Watt Cressey on the night of June 30-July 1, 1975. This pool on Nez Perce Creek was given the name Dead Savage Spring by the U.S. Geological Survey shortly after Cressey’s death. A “savage” in Yellowstone parlance is a park employee.
Cressey, 24, was an Old Faithful Lodge employee from Bellevue, Washington. On the evening of Sunday, June 30, 1975, Cressey and 10-20 other employees attended a large, late-night “hot potting” party on Nez Perce Creek. Cressey somehow got into the wrong pool, the one later measured at 179°F. When the party broke up, apparently no one missed Cressey, for the rest of the group drove home without him. This was suspicious to investigating park rangers, and the FBI was called in to investigate. Cressey, the senior cook at Old Faithful Lodge, had not been popular with everyone, and that fact, plus the group’s returning home without him, made the rangers look at foul play as a possibility.
Cressey’s body remained in the pool all day Monday and when he failed to show up for work on Tuesday, a search began. On Wednesday, his body was found by a young child who was fishing with his father. Not all of it could be recovered because it had been cooking in the spring for more than two days. His death was ruled accidental.
Exactly how Cressey fell into the pool is a mystery, but possibly it was a simple misstep in the dark. Ann Trocolli was one of the members of the swimming party. She stated that Cressey led the way to the pool and that
… once (we were) there, someone, I think Don, dove in. Jeanne (Le Ber) was shocked that someone would dive into the pool, but Don had been there before and must have known what to expect. We all got undressed(.) There were other people, seven or so, already swimming when we got in. (After that) I never saw Don in the pool … There was no one left in the water when we got dressed
On reading this, I assumed Cressey simply dove into the wrong spring in the darkness. But another party member, Miriam Frey, stated that Cressey undressed and was completely naked when she saw him dive into the pool. His body was found fully clothed. Therefore, Donald Cressey must have spent the evening swimming with other party members, gotten out of the 110° pool, put his clothes on, and then must have fallen into the other., much hotter spring. All assuming he rode home with someone else, no one missed him.
Dead Savage Spring, Yellowstone
Culled from: Death In Yellowstone
Mütter Museum Online!
Well, my evening entertainment is sorted with the news that the Mütter Museum has put a number of their collections online! Won’t you join me in perusing? Unfortunately, photos are missing from a number of the items, but it’s still worth a browse.