ST. GEORGE — A local couple was stranded on Red Mountain near Ivins Wednesday night when they took a wrong turn on a trail, according to the Washington County Sheriff’s office. The pair were hiking from Dammeron Valley to Ivins on the Red Mountain Trail.
“They took the wrong trail trying to come off the mountain and ended up on those cliffs right on the face of it,” Sgt. Darrell Cashin, Washington County Sheriff’s Office, said. “They went right down through a crack on it and got ledged out. At some point climbing down, the wife grabbed a rock that was on the rock face to let herself down and it broke loose, and it came into her arm and then hit her husband in the head.”
The hikers — a male, age 59, and female, age 67 — already had been without water for four hours when they became stranded. They sustained injuries to their arms and legs and the male had a non-life threatening head injury, Cashin said.
The call came into Washington County Search and Rescue at 8 p.m. and the rescue was not completed until 4 a.m.
Cashin said that the Search and Rescue West Ground and High Angle Teams were dispatched. They tried multiple approaches, mainly from the top of the mountain with ropes. One crew also tried to reach the couple from below. Then they determined that the Utah Department of Public Safety needed to be contacted to deploy the Utah Highway Patrol hoist helicopter out of Salt Lake City.
“We worked for many hours setting up anchors, rope systems,” Cashin said. “We got two Search and Rescue members with medical supplies and water down to them.”
After the helicopter hoisted the couple off the mountain, rescue team members took them to the Rocky Mountain Vista University parking lot in Ivins. Santa Clara and Ivins EMS assessed the hikers. Cashin said that the couple refused transport to the hospital and were taken back to their car and headed home.
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