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A man was seriously injured after he fell into the mouth of Hawaii’s Kīlauea caldera — a volcano-like cauldron that forms in the earth and emits magma — this week but is reportedly still alive.
He obviously is doing remarkably well for his fall,” Matthias Kusch, Hawaii County Fire Department battalion chief, told Hawaii News Now. “Only time will tell what injuries he has.”
The fall, inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, happened when the man climbed over a metal railing, lost his footing and fell from a 300-foot cliff, USA Today reported. According to the National Park Service, the unidentified visitor was trying to get closer to the edge at the Steaming Bluff overlook. A fellow tourist called for emergency services and a search and rescue team descended into the gorge to find him.
They found him a half-hour later, “alive but seriously injured on a narrow ledge about 70 feet down from the cliff edge,” the park service said in a statement.
He was brought back up and airlifted to a local hospital.
The park has gone about a year and a half — since October 2017 — without a similar incident, USA Today reported, and since then, officials have repeatedly warned visitors about climbing over guard rails that are put in place for their safety.
“Visitors should never cross safety barriers, especially around dangerous and destabilized cliff edges,” Chief Ranger John Broward said in a statement. “Crossing safety barriers and entering closed areas can result in serious injuries and death.”
Kīlauea erupted last year and quickly became Hawaii’s largest and most destructive eruption in decades.
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