An ordinary walk home after a swim with friends turned into one of the most tragic accidents in the history of Yellowstone National Park. In the summer of 2000, three young seasonal workers stepped across what they believed were harmless streams and instead plunged into a scalding geothermal pool.
A familiar route
Sara Hulpers, 20, and her friends Lance Buchi and Tyler Montague, both 18, were spending the summer working at the park. One evening they had been swimming in the Firehole River with other friends, and they set off back to their accommodation.
They took a path they knew well. It cut through the Lower Geyser Basin along an unofficial trail that many locals used. Along the way they jumped across channels of water that they assumed were shallow and safe.
They were wrong. The surface around Cavern Springs, a restricted geothermal feature known for temperatures at boiling point, gave way beneath them, and all three fell in.
Screams in the dark
Lance and Tyler kept their heads above the surface and were able to climb out by themselves. Sara could not, and she needed help from friends who had been walking ahead. They had rushed back after hearing the agonizing cries.
Lance’s relatives later said he remembered feeling solid ground under his feet, only to drop down again as he tried to escape the burning water. The injuries were catastrophic. Sara suffered third-degree burns over her entire body and died the following day in a burn unit in Salt Lake City.
A fight to survive
The two young men were flown to Idaho Falls and then transferred to the burn center at the University of Utah. Each had burns across about 95 percent of his body.
Doctors gave them a survival chance of 30 to 40 percent. Infection was a major danger, because so little healthy skin remained that could be used for grafts. Tyler’s grandfather, Bob Welti, a former local meteorologist, was at the hospital in the early days and described the situation as the "saddest" he had ever seen.
Both men survived, though they endured months of operations and skin grafts. Tyler left the hospital in November and Lance in December, by which time Lance had lost 51 pounds.
Remembering Sara
Hundreds of people gathered in Oroville, Washington, to honor Sara. She was an outstanding student at Western Washington University and was only weeks away from receiving a new scholarship honor.
Friends who were with her at the end remembered her spirit. Yuvia Storm, 21, who knew her from their time at Yellowstone, recalled Sara’s final request: "Tell them I had a wonderful life – no regrets."
At the funeral, Sara’s father sang songs he had written about her, and relatives and friends filled the auditorium with sunflowers.
How things stand
Investigators found no sign that alcohol played any part in the accident. Officials said it was the first deadly incident at a Yellowstone hot spring since 1988.
Sadly, it has not been the last. Two more people have died in the park’s thermal areas since then, a 23-year-old in 2016 and a 70-year-old in 2022. The story of Sara, Lance and Tyler remains a stark reminder of how dangerous the ground can be in places that look calm and ordinary.
Image credit: No Fee
Source: Daily Express US
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