Last year, Rachael Gingery left Burning Man in the back of an ambulance with a broken back, broken ribs, a bruised spleen and a punctured lung. It was the kind of brutal experience that might make you think she’d never return to the nine-day-long art and music event in the Nevada desert.

Yet this August, Gingery was busy getting ready to return for her ninth Burn. If anything, the risky nature of the event that left her sitting in a remote medical tent for 16 hours is part of the allure.

“I appreciate that Burning Man is a little bit dangerous,” Gingery recently told SFGATE. “It’s kind of what makes it exciting.”

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Gingery is one of the 1,524 people injured at Burning Man last year according to data shared with SFGATE by the nonprofit that runs the festival. The organization said there was a single death in 2024, as well as one in 2023. Thousands of people were seen by medical staff in 2023 and 2022, according to the event’s annual reports. Some injuries and even deaths are hardly surprising given the sheer scale of the event, which attracted over 70,000 people last year. But Burning Man’s setup also presents many dangers. 

Temple of Together by Caroline Ghosn at Burning Man 2024.

Dehydration and exposure are a constant risk in the desert........

© SFGate