In case anyone needs a reminder — and video evidence shows that at least one person has gotten one — you should not climb over a protective railing at the Grand Canyon and perch precariously between two rocks as people yell at you to stop doing that. The reason? You might fall into the Grand Canyon, which is, to be clear, bad.
That is exactly what happened to one tourist named Cole. The details of Cole's fall, which happened a few years ago, were recently posted to Reddit.
Luckily for Cole, the fall did not take him all the way to the bottom of the canyon, and he survived — albeit after breaking his neck and back, collapsing his lung, having to be emergency rescued, and receiving a tracheotomy.
Cole's brother Steven Hove posted an accurately titled "Brief Interview With My Brother Who Survived his Fall into the Grand Canyon!" to YouTube.
"I'm doing OK except for the scars," Cole says.
After the harrowing fall, Cole may be more cautious in the future, but it was still an incredibly tough way to learn about how flouting safety rules at national parks is not only dangerous but also puts park staff and emergency responders at risk while ruining the experience for fellow parkgoers.
"Yeah my brother does search and rescue, he's seen some rough s*** because of [people] ignoring sunset times, weather warnings, etc. Several S&R volunteers have been severely injured or even died trying to save or locate missing people," wrote one commenter on the Reddit thread.
Unfortunately, this type of behavior at the Grand Canyon is not an isolated incident and is part of a larger trend of visitors to national parks ignoring the rules and getting too close to animals.
"Hopefully, he got the bill for that rescue effort," another commenter wrote.
🗣️ Should national parks be allowed to ban visitors for bad behavior?
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🔘 NO 👎
🗳️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind
Getting to visit nature's wonders is a great privilege. Whenever we get the opportunity to do so, we should approach it with respect and a desire to do no harm — to ourselves, to the wildlife, and to the park itself. And hopefully, no one else will have to learn a lesson as painfully as Cole, regardless of whether an infraction is intentional or not.
"They put a fence there for a reason," someone else wrote.
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