Posted on 01/08/2008 9:33:23 AM PST by CedarDave
SANTA FE, N.M. -- A woman drowned when she apparently tried to retrieve a kitten from a 55-gallon rain barrel at her home southeast of Santa Fe.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said 48-year-old Deborah Hill was found by her husband Sunday afternoon after he returned home from running errands. Solano said the couple had dragged the plastic barrel inside their home because they wanted to thaw ice that had formed in the barrel.
The barrel, which Solano said was tied to a door so it wouldn't tip, was about one-third full of water when the kitten fell in. Solano said Hill apparently was standing on something to reach down for the kitten when she slid in.
Detectives said the kitten is alive, and most likely climbed out over Hill.
Only in New Mexico.
Kirwan and Ratliff rushed to the spring and stood on the edge of it. Ratliff and another bystander both saw that Kirwan was preparing to go into the spring, and the bystander yelled, "Don't go in there!" Kirwan yelled back, "Like hell I won't!". Several more people yelled not to go in, but Kirwan took two steps into the pool then dove head first into the boiling water. One witness described it as a flying, swimming-pool-type dive. Visitor Earl Welch of Anniston, Alabama, saw Kirwan actually swim to the dog and attempt to take it to shore, go completely under water again, then release the dog, and begin trying to climb out.
Ronald Ratliff pulled Kirwan from the spring, sustaining second degree burns to his feet. Welch saw Kirwan appear to stagger backwards, so the visitor hastened to him and said, "Give me your hand." Kirwan offered his hand, and Welch directed, "Come to the sidewalk." As they moved slowly toward the walk, Kirwan managed to say, "That was stupid. How bad am I?" Welch tried to reassure him, and before they reached the walkway Kirwan again spoke softly, "That was a stupid thing I did." Welch was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that he walking with a corpse. He could see that Kirwan's entire body was badly burned as the skin was already peeling off. It seemed to Welch that Kirwan was blind, for his eyes appeared totally white. Another man ran up, began to remove one of Kirwan's shoes, and the men watched horrified as the skin came off with it. "Don't do that!" said Welch, and Kirwan responded very tiredly, "It doesn't matter." Near the spring, rangers found two large pieces of skin shaped like human hands. Kirwan experienced third degree burns over one hundred per cent of his body, including his entire head. He was taken to the clinic at Old Faithful, where a burn specialist who was coincidentally on duty could do little for him other than to pump in IV fluids at a high rate. Bob Carnes, a ranger who saw him at the clinic, remembers thinking that Kirwan did not have a chance for survival. "He was blind and most of his skin was coming off." Ratliff's dog died in the pool and was not rescued. Oils from its body later made the hot spring have small eruptions. Kirwan died the following morning in a Salt Lake City hospital. In the men's truck, rangers found the park's warning literature and pamphlets. Kirwan and Ratliff had not read any of them.
check your e-mail
Probably an accident...but they will investigate, won’t they? You know, the usual, debts piled up, life insurance, etc. Was this a portly or a frail woman incapable of getting out of a barrel?
Thinking it over, I can see how an older, less that trim and fit person could not be able to grasp well enough to pull or push your body up from the bottom of a barrel.
That’s hilarious. You need to get that on photobucket.
I need a barrel like that!
What kind of knot did he use to tie it so it wouldnt fall over?
I would, but we’re blocked here.
Annie Taylor, (Queen of the Mist) who, in 1901, became the first person to plunge over the brink of Niagara Falls in a barrel.
Hmmm...
My error. Usually I catch these things.
while you’re away and there’s a wet cat running around.
LOL
55 gallon is not that deep this is a “snoops” moment.
Sam Patch...1829. He’s buried in one of our local cemeteries.
It's not hard to fall in. It's hard for an adult to fall in in such a way that he can't get out.
Most of y'all have probably seen the warnings on the side of plastic barrels, to keep small children away from them. Small children are top-heavy -- the mass of their heads relative to their bodies is much larger than that of adults. So when they tip forward, they have a difficult time tipping back.
If an adult falls headfirst into a 55-gallon barrel 1/3 full, that's about 18 gallons. 18 gallons of water weights a lot. Many adults lack the upper body strength to lift the barrel, or to push themselves up from it. But most adults have enough height and mass to throw their bodies to one side or another and dump the barrel out.
And, as my mechanic says, there's your problem. An odd combination of factors.A rain barrel indoors is odd enough, but one tied off to keep it from tipping over, that's just odd.
Maybe they had a dog big enough to knock it over. All I can think of.
Of course, there's the possibility that this was a homicide with a really lame cover story.
As you note, it’s pretty heavy. Must have been really hard to carry inside to begin with.
Well, that's awfully nice of her.
Fast, friendly service?
Handtruck, maybe? the more important question is, why? If there's ice in the rain barrel, who cares? If it's cold enough to freeze up, it's cold enough that you're not gonna be watering your plants or washing your car anyway.
And if, for whatever reason I can't fathom, you need to melt the ice in your rain barrel, wouldn't it be easier to tote a kettle outside than to tote the barrel inside?
Are we missing something? Don’t these people have running water? They lugged a 1/3 full barrel inside instead of turning on the tap?
I live in Atlanta. We have a pretty serious drought going on around here, and before long I'll put a rain barrel on each of my gutter downspouts.
The issue isn't a lack of running water. the issue is using water that isn't pure, or clean, or potable, for uses where those things don't matter. Why waste drinkable water, where and when it's scarce, to water a lawn or wash a car? It's far more sensible to collect water that may not be sanitary and use it where it doesn't have to be sanitary.
I don't think the issue here was bringing the water inside. It was melting the ice. Why that was important, I have no clue.
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