Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Lava won't kill you if it briefly touches you. You would get a nasty burn, but unless you fell in and couldn't get out, you wouldn't die. In fact there have been 2 cases at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory where a geologist fell into lava. Fortunately in both instances the lava was not very deep and they were able to get out quickly.
Both ended up in the hospital and it was a scary and painful experience. Both recovered fine. Along (1984) points out that little research has been done on injuries caused by lava. People have been killed by very fast moving lava flows. A recent example was the 1977 eruption at Nyiragongo. http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/how-close-can-i-get-lava-and-will-it-hurt-or-kill-me
