Man who died and dissolved in Yellowstone spring of boiling acid had hoped for a natural hot tub

An Oregon man who died after falling into a scalding Yellowstone National Park hot spring in June was looking for a place to “hot pot”, the forbidden practice of soaking in one of the park’s thermal features, officials said.

Sable Scott told investigators that she and her 23-year-old brother, Colin, left a boardwalk near Pork Chop Geyser and walked up a hill in search of “a place that they could potentially get into and soak,” Deputy Chief Ranger Lorant Veress told KULR-TV in an interview.

As Sable Scott took video of her brother with her cellphone on June 7, he reached down to check the water temperature and slipped and fell into a thermal pool about two metres long, a metre wide and three metres deep, according to a National Park Service incident record first reported by KULR.

Park officials did not release the video or a description of it, but the report said it also chronicled Sable Scott’s efforts to rescue her brother.

Search and rescue rangers spotted Colin Scott’s body floating in the pool the day of the accident, but a lightning storm prevented recovery, the report said.

The next day, workers could not find any remains in the boiling, acidic water.