Fatal fall in Yellowstone National Park

2007-10-03
By

Charlotte Harrison, from Beverly Hills, fell to her death while taking pictures at the edge of a steep canyon after she stepped over a low rock wall at a pull out on the Grand Loop Road in Yellowstone National Park.

Rangers were called to the Calcite Springs area, just north of Tower Falls at about 6:30 p.m. on Friday. They could see a woman lying immobile on the canyon floor near the Yellowstone River.

Yellowstone fire department and a technical rescue team responded. A ranger rappelled down the steep 500-foot embankment to reach the woman and confirmed that she was dead. Due to darkness, steep terrain, and the complex nature of this type of large scale operation, park staff had to wait until Saturday morning to remove the victim from the canyon floor. An autopsy conducted over the weekend shows the cause of death was massive trauma caused by the fall.

32-year old Harrison and a 39-year old male friend from Los Angeles were traveling through the park, and had stopped to take pictures at a pullout in the Calcite Springs area just north of Tower Falls when the incident occurred.

This is the second fatal fall at this particular pullout in two years. Harrison slipped off the edge only about 4 meters from where a woman fell to her death in April 2006.

The incident remains under investigation. Anyone with information they think might help investigators is asked to call the Park Tip Line at 307-344-2132.

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  • Jim Peterson

    The feminists are going to suspect the older man pushed her because she wasn’t letting herself be controlled in the May-September relationship….

    There is actually a fascinating book called “Death in Yellowstone” which details all the horrible deaths that tourists have met there. I bought a copy when I was in the hotel near Old Faithful geyser.

    The hot pools called hot pots often cause people to jump in thinking they are like hot tubs. The people assume that they can jump right out if its too hot. Wrong. Even one second at 130 degrees will permanently injure internal organs and skin. Two seconds will mean an agonizing death over several hours.

    Many park workers fall into these hot tubs in the winter through snow or at night when they cannot see them. It often results in death.

    Meanwhile, in 2003 I think, a nice family man got out of his SUV telling the wife and kids to stay put while he took closeup photos of a giant bison sitting quietly in a field. As he got close the bison got up and charged and gored him in the stomach. The wife came over to the man who quietly laid out his last will and testament to her as he died.

    Grizzlies kill at Yellowstone as well. Best to stay inside vehicles.

    Finally, the area around Tower Falls is super dangerous because it is so easy to fall off the cliffs there. This woman above climbed over a fence to stand at the ledge to get a better photo. That type of behavior wins Darwin Awards unfortunately.

    My condolences to the family.

  • Jim Peterson

    By the way, when I learned about how bisons kill so easily on the great plains…I realized that my left wing teachers may have left out some important information on why they were almost wiped out by humans in the last century.

  • Jim Peterson

    If you want to know exactly why this photographer died (and why another died in May 2006 at the exact same spot) then look at the photo on this URL:

    http://www.yellowstone.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15565

    It turns out that one cannot see the river below unless one climbs over the safety wall. It is that simple. So if you want to see the river, you die. If you want a decent photo, you die.

    It is not fair, but that is an example of how dangerous Yellowstone is. The park is not fair. It is wild. Here are more links on the subject:

    http://www.grandtetonpark.org/product_p/10808.htm

    http://www.wyojones.com/safety.htm

    http://www.explorebiodiversity.com/main/video/deathinyellowstone.html






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