A Salt Lake County woman got help from the Salt Lake County volunteer search and rescue team Saturday after she slid on some ice hiking on Mount Olympus and got wedged in a crevice between the ice and some rock.
Cheri Smith, 28, suffered injuries to her head and back in the fall. Smith's husband, Nathan Smith, and a friend, Elissa McConkie, also 28, were hiking with her. McConkie also slipped on the ice but suffered only minor injuries to one of her arms, Salt Lake County Sheriff's Lt. Jon Fassett said. Nathan Smith suffered no injuries but called 911 on his cell phone.
In separate incidents, three hikers also were located in southern Utah on Friday.
To reach Cheri Smith, rescue teams had to hike up Mount Olympus. An attempt to airlift her to safety was unsuccessful because she was in an area too close to the mountain's face and the medical helicopter could not safely reach her.
Search teams cut the woman out of the ice crevice and moved her to an open area so the helicopter could get her off the mountain. She was eventually taken to LDS Hospital to be treated for serious injuries, Fassett said.
The rescue effort began about 2:17 p.m. and lasted nearly five hours, he added.
A Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter assisted with two rescues in two southern Utah counties on Friday. In both cases, hikers went missing on Thursday but were found safe and uninjured the next day.
A father and son pair had been hiking on Navajo Mountain near the Rainbow Bridge National Monument on the Navajo Indian Reservation Thursday. Family members reported them missing when they failed to return, a sheriff's office dispatcher said. The helicopter spotted the pair walking off the mountain and back toward Rainbow Bridge Friday morning.
Hours later, the same chopper spotted 68-year-old Barbara Gilbert, who had been missing overnight in Arches National Park near Moab, park spokesman Murray Shoemaker said.
Gilbert had become separated from her husband and other hiking companions when she veered off the main trail near Broken Arch, Shoemaker said. Search crews were able to track the woman's footprints over several miles but could not locate her. The helicopter spotted her just after 1 p.m. Friday in the Salt Walsh, a canyon near Wolf Ranch and the Delicate Arch, Shoemaker said.
E-mail: jdobner@desnews.com