this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2024
562 points (98.3% liked)

News

23627 readers
3255 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

(page 3) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Hah! Total failure!

The guy is still alive. Nice try Death Valley!

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Might seem like a stupid question but that's Fahrenheit right not Celsius? I like how in the article they unnecessarily clarify that he's talking about temperature in degrees, (a concussed duckling would be able to work that one out) but not the unit of temperature.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Correct

120f = 48c

200f = 93c

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago (8 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 months ago (4 children)

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.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Belgian, so I'm surprised they were sensible enough to wear any kind of footwear

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 months ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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).

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago (2 children)

If there are no relevant foot pictures in the article then it didn't happen.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The burns probably happened in seconds.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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?

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's the kind of shit i expect to happen in a place called death valley. I will only go if escorted by hokuto no ken

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I went to Death Valley once on a tour and the minibus fell off the road. We had to open the door so that we could get some leverage so we could push it out of the small hole that it had fallen in and in the time that we had the door open the plastics on the door completely melted. We were all very hungover as well so it wasn't really a very good experience.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Don't they do helicopter tours there? How does that work ... and if/when it does, it seems like it'd be a dying industry...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Not in Death Valley as far as I'm aware, they do in the local area but not actually in Death Valley itself. I must admit though I'm a bit unclear about how far the really hot bit of Death Valley extends.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›