According to a National Park Service news release, the 42-year-old Belgian tourist was taking a short walk Saturday in the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in 123-degree heat when he either broke or lost his flip-flops, putting his feet into direct contact with the desert ground. The result: third-degree burns.
“The skin was melted off his foot,” said Death Valley National Park Service Ranger Gia Ponce. “The ground can be much hotter — 170, 180 [degrees]. Sometimes up into the 200 range.”
Unable to get out on his own and in extreme pain, the man and his family recruited other park visitors to help; together, the group carried him to the sand dunes parking lot, where park rangers assessed his injuries.
Though they wanted a helicopter to fly him out, helicopters can’t generate enough lift to fly in the heat-thinned air over the hottest parts of Death Valley, officials said. So park rangers summoned an ambulance that took him to higher ground, where it was a cooler 109 degrees and he could then be flown out.
So do we just need to close death valley or require permits in the summer or something? The safety issues seem to be compounding with the extreme heat.
I assume you have to pay a fee to enter Death Valley National Park, and like every National Park I assume the rangers at the entrance and signage all throughout warn you of potential dangers. You can easily get yourself in trouble at Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, or Big Bend National Parks, for example, if you don’t take the risks seriously and make poor decisions.
There are no entrance stations in Death Valley. There’s a fee, but they sorta “trust you” to have paid in advance.
Sure but those other parks… they aren’t called “Deathstone” or “Death Mountain” or “Big Death”…
I feel like Death Valley is being very frank with you on the matter.
A group of European-American pioneers got lost here in the winter of 1849-1850, while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California, giving Death Valley its grim name. Although only one of the group members died here, they all assumed that the valley would be their grave.
I bet more people have died at each of the other 3 parks than at Death Valley NP. Maybe there’s data out there on that somewhere
Interestingly, the park service have a very nice dashboard to look at this:
https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/mortality-data.htm
However, it doesn’t give you the deaths per count of visitors.
This article claims Denali, to be the top park in deaths per capita.
https://www.backpacker.com/survival/the-10-most-dangerous-national-parks-in-america/
It looks like Death Valley is up there, but not the highest, due to motor vehicle accidents. This makes sense since going to death valley ends up just being a lot of time in the car.
Rangers can do their best to inform visitors and provide necessary services for survival, but at the end of the day, safety is one’s own responsibility.
Though they wanted a helicopter to fly him out, helicopters can’t generate enough lift to fly in the heat-thinned air over the hottest parts of Death Valley, officials said. So park rangers summoned an ambulance that took him to higher ground, where it was a cooler 109 degrees and he could then be flown out.
TIL.
Death Valley: We mean it.
Legit, I did not know this until I read this article, either.
I feel like if you go to Death Valley, in July, when we’re having record-breaking temps all over the world, and you wear flip flops…look, I’m not saying anyone deserves to lose a foot just because they’re making stupid choices, but maybe like, a toe. Because man, that is wildly stupid.
I’ll say it. This dumbass deserves to lose his feet. Hell, he earned it.
Literally burned it
While I fully agree with you, for a second there I wondered what could have been proper clothing and footwear for this type of trip. I normally wear Chaco sandals in the Summer and they seem to be sturdier and more appropriate footwear for this walk and then I thought they could melt too, so… Hiking boots? Those would possibly not melt, so maybe they would have been appropriate, but I’m not sure…
A strange game, the only winning move is not to play… You don’t go to Death Valley in the boiling hot summer (I myself have been in June of many years ago and it was a chillier day)
It’s Death Valley.
You want at least mid-rise hiking boots. Trail hiking shoes might be okay, except in the case you step on a rattler.
The boots aren’t full proof protection but they’re much better than a sock.
The biggest reason to go down to shoes is if you plan to be moving over boulders- it’s pretty hard to edge.
Biggest things are that they’re comfortable, sized right and sturdy enough to not fall apart. (Also? Bring lots of socks. Swapping socks frequently will help with the perspiration)
(ETA) For general clothing avoid dark or bright colors- light tan is best, wear light breathable pants and similar shirt. Id recommend avoiding cotton (it sucks for wicking,) and go with linen. I recommend long sleeves but a lot of that has to do with me having 3 shades- white, pink and burnt.
Hat and sunglasses that are comfortable.
Also? The biggest rule? Tell someone where you are going, what your route is, and when you expect to get out. I recommend checking in and out with the parks service cuz they’re gonna be the ones looking for you.
Do rattlers even live in death valley? I’m not sure that they do.
the Mojave Rattler, Mojave Sidwinder Rattler, and Panamint Rattler all can be found there.
There’s other venomous snakes, too, on that list. It’s not a place you want to go about in sandals. not. at. all. There’s also plenty of nasty spiders and scorpions, too. (to be fair, there’s basically scorpions everywhere. except like. the artic)
Huh. There being scorpions everywhere except the Arctic is such a wild statement to your average European. Never have I ever seen a scorpion outside a terrarium despite having traveled and hiked extensively in various countries around the continent.
Are they truly that common in the Americas, even in more temperate climates?
They’re that common basically everywhere, actually.
The UK has yellow tailed scorpions from southern Europe; and with climate change spreading a lot. Northern Europe is still close enough to the artic to give them difficulties; but there’s other species that are smaller that are just hard to find.
There’s also tons of pseudoscorpids that lack the tail (and are tiny,)
Ah. Well, perhaps I ought to amend it to an average Northern European, then. There are definitely no true scorpions in the Nordics, although we probably have some tiny pseudoscorpids around somewhere. Although I’ve hiked all over Southern Spain and never spotted a scorpion there either.
…which probably says more about my perceptiveness or lack-there-of than anything else./edited for spelling
Interesting anecdote. I’m a European-American; members of my family and I have all seen scorpions in Spain, Italy, and especially Greece - all you need to do is stroll through a village at night. As for the US, I’ve never seen one outside a terrarium.
You’ve gone straight to hiking though and are talking about crossing boulders, thats a world away from what happened here. It says he took a short walk from the carpark, likely a footpath to a scenic view, the path is probably suitable for kids and old people. It did say he was with family and other tourists carried him to the carpark so this was not a trek or hike, it was a brief walk
I think the story here isn’t ‘idiot fails to prepare for hike’ it’s more like ‘hot sand can be more dangerous than you think’ which is important because I would never go hiking unprepared but I would take a short walk to look at the view without really considering the possibility that the sand will melt my feet off.
Yeah, this is akin to wearing a bikini to Antarctica.
Yeah even if he had the flip flop he’d still be leaving with burns when the flip flop flips and flops some sand between the shoe and his foot.
"some folks will never lose a toe; then again some folks’ll. Like Cletus the slackjawed yokel. "
Aye! What’s goin’ on on this side!?
Who wears flip flops to the desert?!
“sand? so it’s just like the beach!”
Have you ever even met a Belgian?!?
There’s a good reason their car numberplates are red, it’s so you can avoid the daft cunts 😂
Red number plates? Didn’t notice that, however they seem incapable of navigating roundabouts
Level of observation achieved - BELGIAN
I guess you can say it was no walk in the park for that guy. I’ll see myself out.
Hopefully this wasn’t the sole destination on his trip
I feel like better temporary solutions could be found (than flaying your own skin on hot sand) like ripping your shirt off and tying it to your feet?
The burns probably happened in seconds.
So that is roughly 80-90 C, makes wonder if you can in a couple seconds burn your feet to a level where its skin falls off?
Scenario: You’re barefoot on a hot 90C surface that extends as far as the eye can see. Pain, panic, confusion sets in. How long before you gain the clarity of mind to dump your backpack, yank off your shirt and wrap your feet? With no assistance, because nobody else has any idea why you’re screaming in pain.
Yes, your skin could absolutely fall off in that time.
It is not like someone magically transported the sandals out of his feet. It should have been a more continuous process in which he was probably already long made aware how fucking scorching hot the sand is.
was he German? they love going hiking in sandals, and then need to get rescued from mountains.
why does anyone go into the desert with flip flops?
In the 80s, and I was 7, we went to Italy and my parents and I went up Mount Etna and I was wearing flip-flops, making it pretty much impossible to walk up a bunch of lava rocks without them slipping off and cutting my feet. My parents only thought I was complaining about the walk until my mother looked down and saw my feet bleeding.
I haven’t been a big fan of them since.
Don’t you think it’s time to forgive your parents?
Never.
As a former child and current parent: no.
Not even a similar story, but a similar result. As a kid in Vegas in the summer on vacation wearing flip-flops with my feet soaking wet from the various water fountain things. I got blisters, bad. Never been into sandals or flip-flops ever since.
No, the Belgian man was not German.
But he may have spoke German. I’ll allow it.
Are you sure?
Sand = beach
Sandals and flip flops are very different things for walking.
There are awesome hiking sandals that provide excellent support, grip, and all. But flip flops? Oof.
I’ve had the misadventure of having to do a small jungle trek with flip flops (my super duper fancy hiking shoes were soaking wet). I managed but it wasn’t ideal. The Australian rainforest is not exactly flip flop friendly.
I’m one of those special kinds of idiot where I pride myself on my ability to traverse any terrain in my thongs (flip flops).
The kinds of things they do and the places they go in thongs in South-East Asia. It’s humbling.
Humans seem to have a special mental gap when it comes to mountains. It’s warm and sunny so they go up in flip-flops and tiny short shorts, but on the actual mountain it’s freezing cold and often raining and they require rescuing because at some point they either fall over due to trying to wander around in what are essentially plastic slippers, or they’re too cold and they can’t carry on.
We know that the temperature drops as you go up and yet somehow that seems to fail to register for people.
As an American scout, it’s also been funny talking to my friends years after the kind of things you take for granted. I had a friend that took a bunch of people up a moderate hike, but they wound up in what could have very easily turned into a not moderate fuck up. I’ve never really considered myself a “survivalist”, but I was seriously in error in assuming people knew the basics.
Yeah. Even completely safe hikes, like even a flat and level trail in your neighborhood can turn into a survival situation if you trip and fall and hurt yourself. If you break something in your leg, you’ll have to hobble or crawl your way to help. If you hit your head, you could fall unconscious or even die outright if you hit it just right.
Belgian, so I’m surprised they were sensible enough to wear any kind of footwear
Burn.
Like sand.
Belgian
Swamp German
I always thought of Belgians as being swamp French. It’s the Dutch who are swamp Germans.
“I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and it melts your skin off.”
People almost dying in “Death Valley”?
People die there every year. People aren’t too bright sometimes.
The best part is no matter what health insurance he has (or doesn’t have), that’s gonna be expensive as fuck by the end of the year.
Belgian. So probably no freedumb buck based medical system. Wouldn’t be surprised if those systems also cover citizens while abroad.
They don’t, you’re advised to buy the most expensive travel insurance you can find when going to USA or Canada.
International travel health insurance is not that expensive in Europe. In Germany you can get it for the equivalent of around $15-20 a year. Then you are fully insured for a travel period of 8 weeks per year. Insurances like that also exist in Belgium.
True, I worked with travel insurance for a while in Euorpe. It’s still advised to get better coverage ones when going to North America, even several travel insurances, as the top amount in the cheapest ones will not be enough to even open an American hospital door.
Death Valley
To be fair, it is right there in the name.
“I thought that was like, ironic, bruh.”
“Irony didn’t get you into this mess, son.”
why do people keep going here. does nobody watch the local news there or is it all biden gone here’s herris, trunp maga pooble dooble and nothing actually local?
The average person has become accustomed to no threats to their life. You know how they tell you not to feed wild animals, because they become accustomed to it and can’t fend for themselves? It’s like that.
Technically, the reason they tell you not to feed wild animals is because they’re likely to maul you when you run out of food.
A more cynical way I’ve seen this put: we’ve made it too easy for stupid people to survive.
Yeah, if you’re going to venture into dangerous areas at least learn basic survival skills. Like why the hell didn’t he wrap his feet using his clothes?
It’s really bizarre. These kinds of people shouldn’t leave the city gates without someone experienced in case something like this happens. Hope he gets well though.
Experienced in what? Reading comprehension? The place is called DEATH valley. Pair of flip flops will do?
Experience with not dying in hostile environments. The bar isn’t that high, all you need is some common sense, that apparently, this fella did not have.
This reminds me of the story of the German family that went on a trip to Death Valley and ended up accidentally driving up an Arroyo they thought was a road, getting stuck, and dying of dehydration after they tried to walk to safety.
If you’re going to go to a new and strange environment, make sure you get some advice from a local and don’t push yourself. Many tragedies like this are caused by people making genuine mistakes, but they can be prevented. If he’d simply asked someone if walking around Death Valley in flip flops was a good idea, he’d be fine.
I remember that! The write up by the guy who found their remains was pretty interesting.
One line really stuck out to me: ‘at that point they were in a survival situation, although they probably didn’t realize it yet.’ He really detailed out how, without making any obvious mistakes (from their perspective), they ended up in a deadly situation. From their point of view, it was situation normal… until it wasn’t.
Also it took over a decade to find their remains if memory serves me right, because all of the initial search and rescue attempts were done be folks who would know what to do in that situation. It took a dude putting his mind in “ignorant European” mode to find the skeletons, because basically no one from the south west would think to cross a desert to go to an old military base. Half those things are abandoned why would you try that, but that aint how it works in much of Europe.
The writeup is here, for anyone interested. I wholeheartedly recommend it, it’s a fascinating story.
Maybe don’t even go to a place called “Death Valley.”
Eh, I don’t think that’s really fair.
It is a national park, and it’s huge, something like 5000 square miles of desert.
I could see the appeal for someone who has never seen a desert to want to go and see a huge desert for the first time. I could even see why they’d pick that desert: cool name, cool history, lots of beautiful mountains. I can also see why a lot of foreign people would get a false sense of security, it’s called a park, it’s in a well developed country, and it’s “maintained” by its own government agency, so surely things can’t go too wrong out there.
I’ve travelled all over the US, and have been to a lot of national parks. I always do my research about the area, get printed maps, carry a gps, and generally follow all the rules you’re supposed to. But those are American rules because this is kind of a unique country in that you can drive from a city that has everything you need to live into true wilderness where there might not be another human or even a way to contact anyone for miles, in a matter of hours. Most developed countries are not like that. So for someone who’s come from a country like Germany, or really anywhere in Europe, it really would be a culture shock to realize that there are huge sections of this country where you are on your own.
I don’t blame people for wanting to come here and see our beautiful national parks. But the amount of people I’ve seen who either don’t carry water, or just carry a small bottle from a vending machine, is insane. And I doubt those people tell anyone what their route is, or what to do if they don’t show up at a specific time.
These Germans really made some simple mistakes that any average person could, and didn’t have the education on wilderness to truly recognize they had wound up in a fight for their life. I’ve seen it happen before even in small state parks.
I live a half hour from Death Valley, and it’s not named ironically, it’s a death zone. It’s not really habitable for humans, you should never go alone, have full body covering clothes, heavy duty foot wear, lots of food and drink, and know how to get out from where you are at all times. It’s not safe, many people still die there every year. It’s just sad to me. I’m always sad to hear about anyone that dies or gets injured, we’re a little isolated out here and tourists are some of the best people we regularly deal with, I love tourists. They just aren’t always aware of the risks out there.
I just want to say I like the general tone of this comment. Compassionate, respectful, and warning.
Group of pioneers in 1849: “This place is dangerous! Let’s call it Death Valley so people know to steer clear!”
