SUV carrying 5 people falls into hot, acidic geyser at Yellowstone National Park

Five people ended up in the hospital after their SUV drove off the road and landed in a geyser at Yellowstone National Park last week.

The vehicle went off the road and was fully submerged in 9 feet of water inside the inactive Semi-Centennial Geyser thermal feature near Roaring Mountain, between Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris Junction, at around 10:40 a.m. Thursday, according to a news release Friday.

The Semi-Centennial Geyser has acidic and hot surface water temperatures, and temperatures of the geyser can reach about 105 degrees.

Fortunately, all five occupants were able to escape on their own and were transported to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Yellowstone law enforcement rangers closed both lanes of the roadway for about two hours on Friday to remove the vehicle.

Additional information, including the cause of the crash and the passengers’ condition, was not immediately known.

The Semi-Centennial Geyser was briefly named the largest geyser in the world when it was first seen erupting in 1922, spraying water from an underground hot spring an estimated 300 feet into the air, according to an old bulletin that documented the incident by the National Parks Association.