SeeCalifornia.com

We want to throw caution to the wind sometimes and ignore warnings, but there may be a price to pay. While perusing the National Parks website I noticed a warning about staying on paths at Lassen Volcanic National Park’s hydrothermal areas.  Of course signs are posted everywhere telling visitors to stay on the bridges and designated trails.  But people, for whatever reason, ignore the signs.

• A visitor was severely burned in the summer of 2010 after he traveled off-trail in the Devils Kitchen hydrothermal area. He stated that “It feels like I put my leg in a flame.”
• On May 5, 2012, a visitor was air-lifted to a regional burn unit after stepping off the sidewalk at Sulphur Works. The ground appeared solid, but she easily broke through a one-inch crust, exposing her foot and ankle to boiling acidic water and mud.

Who is at fault?

• In Huntington Beach where the contentious fire ring debate has raged on, parents recently settled a lawsuit  out of court alleging the city didn’t provide proper maintenance of a bonfire ring their young boy fell into and burned himself.  Should they have been more watchful of their child around fires? More…>
• In Yosemite two young lovers fell to their death at as they entered the water approximately 25 feet from the precipice above Yosemite’s Vernal Fall. Trying to get great photographs, they were  were seen clinging to each other in a bear hug as the water swept them away. The drop is 317 feet at the waterfall’s edge.  Warning signs are posted to keep your distance from the falls.
  
• Recently a man visiting a popular beach in Australia ignored the sign to stay out of the water after a shark was seen there. When he went in, the shark bit his leg off.
• California led the nation in dog bite deaths in 2012. Tyzhel McWilliams (8-months old) was killed by one of three pitbulls in an apartment where his mother had lived with the dogs for two years. In an interview 5 days after the baby’s death, the mother expressed disbelief that the pit bull named Zulu would take her baby’s life. Zulu seemed to watch over the infant like a protective parent, the mother said.