Very well written and impactful read. This story is about extreme examples, seemingly about people ignoring obvious dangers and thinking "it won't happen to me!".

But the conclusion resonates heavily with me, it bears a very fundamental and important truth that has nothing to do with the extremes of raging torrents or scorching heat pictured: real, actual nature bears fatal risks for anyone, if you are unprepared, uninformed and not cautious.

I'm living in Austria, a rather boring place but one of the countries with impressive natural landscapes and some of the highest peaks in the Alps. Most of these destinations have good infrastructure and are well visited touristic landmarks, and would seem tame compared to the extremes depicted in the article.

But every year we have countless helicopter rescues of utterly unprepared tourists surprised by Alpine weather, and luckily not often but still regular casualties. So common, that "stupid {German,Italian,Youcallit} tourist getting himself nearly killed because he thought mountaineering was a Sunday afternoon hike" has become a huge meme in our country.

And that struck me hard in this story. Even if you don't venture into really dangerous places, being naive or oblivious to the forces of nature will put you into seriously dangerous situations.

To put it in perspective: there's no summer here without some tourist getting maimed or nearly killed by a cow because they thought it's nice taking a picture, disregarding it's calves and threatening behaviour.