The dog that ran into a Yellowstone National Park thermal area on Monday has died, park officials announced on Wednesday.
According to the park, the woman and her father exited their vehicle to look around the vicinity Fountain Flat Drive, south of Madison Junction, in the park. When they did, their dog jumped out of the car and into Maiden’s Grave Spring near the Firehole River.
The woman entered the hot spring to retrieve the dog. After her father pulled her out of the feature, he drove the party to West Yellowstone, Montana.
Yellowstone National Park rangers and Hebgen Basin Rural Fire District provided initial care to the woman at West Yellowstone. She was then transported to the Burn Center at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center.
A GoFundMe campaign was launched by the family of the woman, identified through the campaign as Laiha Slayton, which had raised nearly $19,000 as of Wednesday afternoon. The campaign is intended to pay for medical expenses for the family, the veterinarian bill, food and lodging.
Slayton received third-degree on 90% of her body after jumping into the 190-degree water.
“My sister’s palms are completely gone and will have to go into surgery and possibly for the rest of her body too,” Kamilla Slayton wrote on the campaign. “She is in a medically induced coma for 2 weeks.”
The Slayton’s father burned his foot when saving his daughter from the hot spring, according to the campaign.
This was the second significant injury in a thermal area in 2021. The first occurred in September at Old Faithful when a 19-year-old woman left the boardwalk on the park and suffered second- and third-degree burns to 5% of her body.
In 2020, a three-year-old suffered second degree-thermal burns to the lower body and back and a visitor (who illegally entered the park) fell into a thermal feature at Old Faithful while backing up and taking photos.
In September 2019, a man suffered severe burns after falling into thermal water near the cone of Old Faithful Geyser. In June 2017, a man sustained severe burns after falling in a hot spring in the Lower Geyser Basin.
In June 2016, a man left the boardwalk and died after slipping into a hot spring in Norris Geyser Basin. In August 2000, one person died and two people received severe burns from falling into a hot spring in the Lower Geyser Basin.
