Tourist Taking Pictures Dies In 500-Foot Fall In Yellowstone

<snip>

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. -- A woman lost her footing after stepping over a retaining wall to take a photograph and went over a cliff, falling 500 feet to her death in a canyon, park officials said.

Deborah Chamberlin, 52, of Rockford, Mich., was visiting the park with her husband and two children, park spokesman Al Nash said Sunday. She was vice president of the school board in her west Michigan community, The Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press reported in its Sunday edition.

Her husband flagged down a passing motorist, who called 911 after the Saturday morning accident at an overlook along the Yellowstone River, park officials said.

A ranger rappelled down the canyon wall to reach the woman, but she was dead at the scene.

http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/9390286/detail.html

Man: OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!! Mr. Ranger, my wife just plummeted off the cliff!!!

Ranger: Did she step over the retaining wall?

Man: Yes, she was taking a picture, and now she fell - she's gotta be hurt! MY GOD MAN, help her!! HELP HER!!

Ranger: I'm sorry you married such an idiot. Perhaps next you will find a wife that doesn't step over the retaining wall. (Lights cigarette, flicks match at man, leaves shaking head at stupidity. Hires a guy to go down with a mule and get the body, sends bill to man)

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

it was the flicking of the match that killed me

:rofl:

For me it was the fact that the ranger sent the bill to the man afterwards. Man, that is raw!!

Requires idiots to pay costs of their own rescues if they got into trouble after going around barricades to keep cars out of flooded roadways.

Not enough money available to save all twits for free. Maybe financial deterrents to thinking one is special and rules just don't apply has a place ;)

because idiot fuck mainlanders would go hike up into the mountains on one of the many trails, and ignore the "do not go beyond this sign/stay on trail" signs and get hopelessly lost, and then, at a cost of $50 grand a search, the helicopters and rescue personnel would have to go track them down and figure out how to get them out of the forests. And somewhat often, at least one rescue person would die in the attempt.

So they considered, at least for a while, charging morons for their rescues. Sadly, it didn't pass.

I say, let the dumbfucks find their own way out. Why should rescue people risk their lives for morons? I don't think they should be expected to. And I don't think tax money should go to pay to rescue the ignorant fuckbags.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-1570980217-0

The first chapter is the worst; it's about people who perish in geysers and hot springs. Gory details are not spared. Then it's on to the people who got too close to the bears, bison, and elk, and the people who pitched over the edge of cliffs.

Really gorgeous park, by the way. Read and heed the warning signs and pamphlets.

i lent it out, and it never came home :-(

the saddest stories were the ones about the pets, esp. the ones where a pet jumped into a hot spring pool, and the owner went in after to save them. so very sad. :cry:

jumped out of the truck and dove into a pool, the guy who dove in to save the dog, and his subsequent gruesome death.

My household has loaned out two copies of that and they didn't come back. I finally bought a copy last summer in Bozeman that will not be leaving the house.

I see "Death at the Grand Canyon" is now also available.

Fortunately, most of the deaths are folks who hiked in, and I'm WAY too lazy to do that.

Kind of disturbing, but some good mysteries as well.

Always an interesting show, in my book.

But, yeah.

but i'm evil -- sooo

There is a rock feature on the South Rim somewhere that kind of sticks out into the air. A railed-in path goes out there, but people were going beyond the rails to have their pictures taken on the very edge. An unexpected gust would send them on a 3000 foot journey straight down.

on the inside, hold me hand!!!" I saw people letting their toddlers run ahead of them, run ahead and there was no guardrail, i literally thought i was going to puke.

Yep, that is inches from the edge in some places. Ayeeeeeeeeeeeeee--splat! Actually, it isn't quite a sheer drop, so one would have time to bounce around and break some bones before slamming into the canyon floor. At least there is lots of exposed rock to cushion the fall.

stating that an acquaintance or family member of hers knew this woman.

off of cliffs. And the presidents. And most of the rest of the assholes who get in the way of effective teaching and education and waste our taxpayers with their bloated fucking salaries.

husband and children to witness such a thing.


I can't find anything funny about it at all. People do stupid things all the time without thinking, hell just look how many people voted for bush. Stupid acts cost dearly.

My condolences to the family.
A human life lost is never a good thing.


aA

More horrifying. And worst to have it spread all over the news for people to laugh at.

could have been prevented.

I just don't get laughing at a woman falling to
her death in front of her husband and family.

:wtf:

Some times I'll crawl out on a ledge to get a good shot of a waterfall or something, feeling perfectly safe or secure about it, and then a few days later I'll be lying safe in bed and have a panic attack about it.

But I don't go over retaining walls. That's just nuts.

I've taken some pictures where there are a hundred people beyond the warning sign taking pictures of the view.

here is one of the major sights:

As a result of reading this thread those boys would have crawled up so far inside of me by now that I'd be a woman. But, because I'm already a woman...

Yikes. This stuff makes me hang onto my mouse for dear life.

I used to work near the brink of the falls and would go down there sometimes for lunch. There was a place where there was a small shelf of rock past the retaining wall. Tourists would jump the wall and go up on the shelf (it's actually a leftover piece of Table Rock) to "get a better picture". Doing so, would put them .00001% closer to the falls and 99.99999% closer to the edge. Predictably, they'd fall over the cliff. Predictably, relatives would sue. Predictably the judge would say "what part of the 14 signs saying DO NOT CLIMB OVER THIS BARRICADE in upteem languages, one of them presumably your native tongue given we're speaking in it, didn't your relative understand?"