So sad. You would think an 11 year old would know better.
Maybe they weren’t from that area, so the novelty of it all took control of the boy.
This happens in our Yellowstone Park area too, from time to time, in spite of several signs warning not to venture too closely.
It would not surprise me, if over the next decade, these areas were simply gated off, no longer accessible to the public. Liability suits from the bereaved families of irresponsible people would do this very quickly.
Look at what’s happened to most school playgrounds, with the fun stuff (like Monkey Bars or Swings or even Sliding Boards) often being removed.
I went to Iceland last summer, and they have a set-up like this....trail, fence...around a boiling mud-pit in a volcanic area. Various tourists stopped off and kids were edging up to the pits. I just shook my head...people don’t grasp the danger involved.
It was starting about that age when my kids went completely off the rails, especially Little Miss Lurkin.
Doing better now, but I think they aged me twenty years over the course of ten years.
“You would think an 11 year old would know better.”
Yes, you would. It’s too late for common sense now. They’re gone. But I’d wager that if you could go back and view a video of these people’s rearing of that sterling young lad, you’d find that his incidents of disobeying warnings. going beyond clearly defined limits, barriers, etc., were commonplace. And one day the law of averages jumped up and bit him in the butt. The parents’ frantic efforts to rescue him were powerless and fatal. They should have beaten his ass when he was still trainable. IMHO.
If my parents said to stay out of the area, I would have stayed out of the area. End of discussion.