Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park by Lee H. Whittlesey

Author:Lee H. Whittlesey
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Wildlife, Animals, Social Science, Death & Dying, Nature
ISBN: 9781570984501
Publisher: Roberts Rinehart
Published: 1995-06-15T18:47:01.750000+00:00

NPS investigation into Burris Wollsieffer drowning on Yellowstone Lake, which occurred July 18, 1973, showing weight and gear distribution in canoe (NPS photo #29084, YNP Archives)

The two scout leaders were Darwin Seamons, 47, and Burris Wollsieffer, 26, paddling furiously in the same canoe. They were in trouble too, along with 16-year-old Tom Gower. Their two crafts capsized and, although they were wearing life jackets like everyone else, they could not survive the lake’s freezing water. Seamons, Wollsieffer, and Gower all died as Safran had, with their core temperatures reaching points too low to allow them to keep swimming.105

Meanwhile Kim Jones was swimming frantically. Every time he would stop moving his arms in the water, they would freeze up. “I figured,” said Kim later, “Old Buddy, you’d better keep moving because if you don’t, you’re dead.”106 For more than an hour he kept fighting the cold water until at last, exhausted, he fell headlong onto the east shore of Yellowstone Lake. For a while he just lay there, thanking God. Then, rising slowly, he realized he was barefooted and alone in the dark. Kim began walking north on the east shore trail. He had seen a cabin earlier and thought it to be a ranger station. All night long he walked, falling down several times, his feet badly beaten by rocks and downed timber.

A bear surprised him all of a sudden, and Kim climbed a tree, hurting his bare feet more. He stayed in the tree for an hour until the bear got tired of slapping it, and then resumed his hike in the dark, trying to stay near shore to attract the attention of any boater. Kim prayed constantly and kept thinking, “Some of my buddies are in trouble and I’ve got to get help for them.” But there were no boaters until 10:00 a.m. the next morning, when the youth flagged one down from shore. He had walked about seventeen miles.

Park rangers found the other four teenage survivors—Paul Porter, Kevin Seamons, Russ Hallett, and Ken Foley—and took them all to Lake Hospital, where Kim Jones was recovering. Ranger Jerry Ryder remembers interviewing Jones in his hospital bed. Jones told the rangers that his father had always told him if he ever fell into cold water to swim, swim, swim.107 When he first arrived at the hospital, Jones said he felt that he had abandoned Bob Safran in the water, but later he decided, “if I had tried to pull him in, we both might have been dead.”108

Three of the bodies were found initially, but Wollsieffer’s was never found.109 The tragedy haunted John Dracon and his friend Richard of White Sulphur Springs, Montana, for thirty-five years. Dracon was then superintendent of schools in that town. He was canoeing on Yellowstone Lake that day and, before the incident, exchanged pleasantries with the Explorer Scouts near Park Point.

While I cannot recall their faces, I do recall their equipment and their eagerness to get down the lake. What struck me then was the size of their canoes, which I felt were undersized and looked homemade.

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