From Deseret News archives:
Geyser burns healing
Boy who was injured at Yellowstone looks good
The 6-year-old gamely touched his shoulder with his left arm when his parents asked, and he tried to do the same with his right, which was burned a little more severely. He talked willingly about riding on the "doctor truck" and airplane, although he seemed a little more interested in talking about the game he was playing on his Gameboy. If not for the bandages on his arms and legs, he could have passed for any other kid on summer vacation.
Three days ago, he was. Rich's mother, Amy Robinson, said the family had just started their vacation at Yellowstone National Park on Saturday and were taking their first walk through the park. It had been raining, she said, and Rich was playing around, pushing water off the bench when he lost his footing, falling right side first into hot water running off of West Triplet Geyser.
Rich's father, Trace, was the one who actually pulled him out of the stream, which Amy Robinson said rangers estimate to be between 160 degrees and 170 degrees.
Trace Robinson said that they pulled Rich's shoes and socks off and could tell immediately that the burns were pretty bad.
"His skin was like wet tissue paper," he recalls.
Rich has second-degree burns on his legs and arms, but his face and torso were spared injury. Amy Robinson said she thinks her son probably didn't even have time to catch himself, which likely saved his face. If he'd tried to catch himself, Rich would have fallen in face first, she said.
Within seconds, a ranger had called for help, and within 15 minutes, Amy Robinson said, her son was being cared for at the Old Faithful Clinic. The clinic decided to send him to the burn unit at the University of Utah Hospital, fearing that the boy would go into shock.
"Everybody was quick and efficient," she said. "It was a good place for it to happen."
If there is a good place for something like that to happen, she quickly adds.
Rich was released from the U. hospital Monday morning and by that afternoon had taken up residence on the couch in the family's South Jordan home. Propped up against a SpongeBob SquarePants pillow, he seemed in pretty good spirits.
Amy Robinson said they will find out Wednesday whether Rich will need skin grafts. His prognosis is good, she said, although many of the burns are on joints, she said. This means that Rich has some hard days of physical therapy ahead of him.
This incident will make the family, which visits Yellowstone often, even more careful than they have been, she said. She said she recommends that other parents keep a close eye on their children, even when they think they are careful.
"It wasn't like he was running around wild, he was probably 10-15 feet away," Trace Robinson said.
Rich is the first person to suffer severe thermal burns at Yellowstone Park this summer.
E-mail: dmaxfield@desnews.com
