Boiling on Mountaintop

Frank

Hi Guys, I was reading a book (fiction) the other day - to cut a long story short there was one scene where the main character puts his hand in a pan of boiling water. This scene takes place at the top of a mountain (where the water boils at lower temperatures due to lower atmospheric pressure) and the character removed his hand from the pan of boiling water to reveal he is unhurt - the natives are impressed!

I was wondering whether this is possible. Lets say the boiling point of water was 60 degrees at the top of this mountain (it's a BIG mountain) and the water in the pan was bubbling away at this temperature. Surely the water contained in skin cells would also boil away at 60 degrees while in this environment? This would mean that putting your hand in boiling water in a low pressure environment should be just as damaging as doing it at sea level.

If someone could shed some light on this I'd be very grateful. FD