SPANISH FORK — The plane crash less than a mile from his camper didn't rouse Lynn Clark Friday morning, but the knock at his door about 10 or 15 minutes later sure did.
Outside was a man Clark quickly realized should have been dead or badly wounded, not hiking through the Shingle Mill area of Diamond Fork Canyon to find help for the other three passengers involved in a plane crash.
"They all fared amazingly well," said Clark, a certified EMT who rushed back up the mountain near Pumphouse Ridge to help while another camper, Bryan Roundy, drove out of Spanish Fork Canyon to call 911.
"They all were very, very lucky," Clark said.
That didn't make the accident any less harrowing for the survivors, four Utah County men who set out from Spanish Fork Airport in a Cessna 172 in the morning to photograph wildlife in the area between Hobble Creek Canyon and Spanish Fork Canyon.
The plane clipped a tree and went down between groves of trees, Utah County Sheriff's Sgt. Shaun Bufton said.
"It was a good thing they clipped that tree," Bufton said. "It took a lot of speed from the craft."
The tree may have saved their lives by easing the landing, but it also flipped the plane, which went nose-first into the ground, sending glass into the face of 18-year-old Springville pilot Scott Miller and breaking passenger Rux Rowland's back. Rowland, 32, is from Orem.
The other two passengers, Miller's cousin Jayson Miller, 26, of Spanish Fork, and Russ Collard, 25, of Santaquin, walked away with minor cuts. It was Jayson Miller who went to find help when the plane went down at about 7:30 a.m.
Clark grabbed sleeping bags, blankets and all the medical supplies he had in his camper and hurried to the scene.
Organized help didn't reach the men for more than an hour because of the time it took Roundy to get to an area where a phone call could be made — there is no cell phone service in the canyon — and because searchers still didn't know the exact location of the crash.
A helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft quickly spotted the wreckage, but the men weren't airlifted by medical helicopters to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo until almost three hours after the accident. The rough terrain made the operation difficult. The helicopters couldn't land directly at the site.
Scott Miller was in critical condition when he arrived at the hospital with a broken ankle and a long gash along one cheek from his chin to his ear.
Plastic surgeons worked on the cut and broken bones in Miller's face on Friday afternoon, a family member told the Deseret Morning News.
Both men were listed in fair condition by Friday afternoon, hospital spokeswoman Janet Frank said.
Collard and Jayson Miller left the scene of the accident in sheriff's vehicles. Collard went to the hospital for treatment of minor cuts and was released, Frank said. Jayson Miller received stitches for a cut on his leg from a private physician.
Clark was among a large number of campers who spent the night within a mile of the crash. Apparently none of campers heard the impact. However, Larry Fullwood of South Jordan believed he saw the fated plane.
"He was real low, about 100 feet off the ridge," Fullwood said. "It didn't sound like he was in trouble or anything. The engine sounded fine. We didn't hear a crash or anything."
More than 25 rescue, police and medical personnel responded to the scene.
Searchers said the survivors told them the plane seemed to lose power just as Scott Miller pulled back on the throttle to navigate over Pumphouse Ridge.
FAA investigators surveyed the wreckage Friday afternoon, then arranged to have the plane recovered so it can be dissected. The National Transportation Safety Board will determine the cause of the mishap, but that can take as much as a year, Utah County sheriff's spokesman Spencer Cannon said.
Despite the significant injuries to Rowland and Scott Miller, rescuers remained surprised at how well all four made it through the incident.
"We've responded to a lot of airplane crashes, and it's rare to have two people walk away essentially unscathed and have the other two escape with less than fatal injuries," Cannon said.
"My first thought when we got the call was there would be four fatalities."
E-mail: twalch@desnews.com