The woman who was severely burned earlier this month at Yellowstone National Park is beginning to awaken from her medically-induced coma, her family announced this week.
Laiha Slayton, 20, was burned when she jumped into a hot spring to rescue her dog, which had jumped out of the family’s vehicle and into the hot spring. Her father pulled her out of the spring. The dog ultimately died from its injuries.
Laiha’s sister, Kamilla Slayton, gave a brief update on Tuesday, noting that her sister’s doctors are slowly waking her from the coma. However, she was not fully awake at the time of the posting.
“She’s pretty uncomfortable right now,” Kamilla Slayton wrote on the family’s GoFundMe campaign for her sister. “She most likely can hear us that doctors say. She did try to move a lot of her upper body and her tongue.”
In addition to the GoFundMe campaign, which had raised almost $70,000 as of Friday, the family is now selling t-shirts to help raise money to cover Slayton’s medical bills and recovery.
Last week, Kamilla Slayton announced that her sister was receiving cadaver skin grafts to replace the skin she lost due to the burns.
Slayton said her sister was in scalding hot, 190-degree, water for about eight seconds.
“My sister’s palms are completely gone and will have to go into surgery and possibly for the rest of her body too,” Slayton said.
She said Laiha has burns on 91% of her body, a mix of third-degree and second-degree burns.
“The burns seem to be better than they had initially thought. She still has some 3rd degree burns but mostly 2nd degree burns after they have got a better look at the skin today,” Kamilla wrote. “This means that our dad pulled her out insanely fast. She’s incredibly lucky. Dad saved her life.”
Slayton said her father was not in pain and his wounds on his foot were being treated. She said his blisters’ average size were about 1.5 inches.
Slayton’s was 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.
