SALT LAKE CITY — A 14-year-old girl from Utah was killed Monday by falling rocks while visiting Glacier National Park.
The girl, whose name and hometown have not yet been released, was in a car with her parents and two other children about 7 p.m. when the rocks hit the top of the car, shattering the rear windshield, the National Park Service said.
The family was driving west near the East Tunnel on Going-to-the-Sun Road.
The rocks, which fell from the mountains above the road, ranged from the size of a fist to about a foot in diameter, park officials said. They estimated that the amount of debris that fell could have filled the bed of a pickup truck.
The teenager died from her injuries while she was being taken by ground ambulance to a hospital in Kalispell. An air ambulance also responded to the scene but was unable to transport the girl because of her unstable condition, according to officials.
The girl’s parents and the other two children in the car were also injured. The adults had “significant bruises,” while the children suffered minor injuries, the park said. All four were taken to a local hospital.
It was the first fatal injury caused by falling rocks on Going-to-the-Sun Road in more than 20 years, the park service said. The last death was in 1996, when a car was hit by a falling rock in the Rimrocks section of the road.