Foot found in Yellowstone hot pool ID’d as that of LA man

FILE – In this photo provided by the National Park Service is the Abyss Pool hot spring in the southern part of Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., in June 2015. Part of a human foot found in a shoe floating in a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park earlier this year belonged to a 70-year-old man from Los Angeles who died in July, park officials said Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. They said they don’t suspect foul play in the man’s death but also didn’t provide any more details. (Diane Renkin/National Park Service via AP, File)

Posted: Nov 17, 2022 / 09:12 AM PST

Updated: Nov 17, 2022 / 09:12 AM PST

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YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) — A foot found floating in a Yellowstone National Park hot pool last summer belonged to a 70-year-old man from Los Angeles, park officials said Thursday.

It still isn’t clear how the man, Il Hun Ro, ended up in the spring, but that investigators don’t suspect foul play, park officials said in a statement.

Park staff found Ro’s partial foot inside of a shoe in Abyss Pool in the park’s West Thumb Geyser Basin in August.

Investigators concluded that whatever happened to Ro occurred on the morning of July 31, but that nobody saw it. They identified Ro through a DNA analysis and notified his family, officials said.

Abyss Pool is 53 feet (16 meters) deep and about 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius). In such springs, hot water cools as it reaches the surface and then sinks as it is replaced by hotter water from below. The circulation prevents the water from reaching the temperature needed to set off an eruption like those that happen in the park’s geysers.