Yellowstone National Park officials have identified the person whose leg was found floating in one of the park’s deepest hot springs in August.
Los Angeles resident Il Hoon Roh, 70, was identified “within the past three weeks” using DNA analysis, the park said in a news release Thursday, and his family has been notified.
“The investigation has determined, to the best of our knowledge, that an unwitnessed incident involving an individual occurred on the morning of July 31, 2022, at Abyss Pool and no foul play was involved,” park officials said. “Due to a lack of evidence, the circumstances surrounding Ro’s death remain unknown.”
An employee first discovered the partial foot in a shoe floating in the thermal pool, located in the West Thumb Geyser Basin in the southern part of the park.
Abyss Pool is up to 53 feet deep, according to the National Park Service. It has a temperature of about 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
The water in these hot springs can “severely burn” visitors, the agency warns on its website.
This is not the first death at one of Yellowstone’s hot springs, according to figures listed on the park’s website. In August 2000, a person died after falling into a hot spring. and in June 2016, a man strayed from a designated trail and slipped and fell into a different hot spring.
