A man dissolved in a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park after accidentally falling into its dangerous acidic water, according to a final report on the June death.
Rescuers located the man's body in the boiling water, but they were driven away by a lightning storm. When they returned, the body had disintegrated.
Colin Nathaniel Scott, 23, of Portland, Oregon, left the boardwalk near Pork Chop Geyser on the afternoon of June 7 with his sister Sable Scott, 21, and walked into a closed area of the Norris Geyser Basin, said the report obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, according to KULR-TV.
"… They were specifically moving in that area for a place that they could potentially get into and soak," said Deputy Chief Ranger Lorant Veress. "I think they call it hot potting."
The geyser they reached, though, contained dangerous boiling acidic water, Veress said. Sable Scott told rangers that her brother reached down to check the temperature of the hot spring when he slipped and fell into it, per KULR.
The Associated Press said Sable Scott captured the incident on her cellphone but officials declined to release the recording.
Search and rescue rangers spotted Colin Scott's body floating in four-foot wide pool but a lightning storm prevented them from recovering the body, said the AP. When the rangers returned the next day to resume their recovery efforts, no remains were found in the boiling water.
"In a very short order, there was a significant amount of dissolving," Veress told KULR-TV, who also pointed out the warning signs in the area of the geyser. "… It is wild and it hasn't been overly altered by people to make things a whole lot safer, it's got dangers. And a place like Yellowstone which is set aside because of the incredible geothermal resources that are here, all the more so."
The Norris Geyser Basin is possibly the hottest geyser basin in the park, according to Yellow Stone National Park.com, with temperatures at many of its geysers hovering near 200 degrees.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.