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A 20-year-old woman plummeted some 100 feet while hiking with her friends but survived after becoming wedged between a rock and the cliffside before she was rescued, according to officials.
The hiking party was heading out on the Red Hollow Trailhead in Iron County, Utah, before dawn to watch the sunrise last Thursday morning when the woman, who was not identified, fell from the mountainside, according to the Iron County Sheriff’s Office and Search and Rescue.
She landed partially wedged between a rock and the cliff face in the dark above the trailhead, officials said.
The hiker “sustained a head injury and was conscious but experiencing confusion regarding the incident,” the sheriff’s office said.
She additionally suffered apparent fractures to her leg and arm, injuries to her ribs or back and multiple cuts and was “experiencing substantial pain,” according to search and rescue officials.
First responders helped free the woman from the narrow space between the rocks and called for an emergency helicopter.
Crews stabilized her and secured her in a rescue basket before carefully lowering her to the canyon floor.
She was then brought to the roadway where the helicopter had landed and rushed to an area hospital, where she is recovering.
Her condition was not immediately clear.
The Iron County Sheriff’s Office urged those visiting the Red Hollow area, a popular destination for sunrise-seekers, to use “extreme caution” and to “avoid hiking near steep drop-offs in darkness or low visibility.”
