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School nurse Ashley Anderson helped rescue a 64-year-old man after he fell 20-feet from the top of a waterfall in Utah’s Adams Canyon on Memorial Day
“This man’s leg was obviously broken, and his head was sliced open and bleeding,” Anderson told NBC affiliate KSL
The man, who is reportedly a grandfather, was airlifted to the hospital following the incident
A 64-year-old grandfather was rescued with the help of a school nurse after falling from a waterfall in Utah on Memorial Day.
On May 26, Ashley Anderson was out hiking with her two children and friends in Adam’s Canyon’s Lower Falls in Layton when the group noticed a man badly injured at the bottom of a waterfall, NBC News affiliate KSL reported.
“My friend’s husband shouted and pointed to a man who had fallen to the bottom of the waterfall. I looked over, and … it took me a second to register that it was a body,” Anderson told the outlet. “This man’s leg was obviously broken, and his head was sliced open and bleeding.”
The Davis County Sheriff’s Office said the man was hiking with his family when he fell “20 feet from the top of the waterfall” in a news release on Facebook. The Davis County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team responded to the scene at around 10:45 a.m. to operate a rescue.
Anderson said the man’s family told her he “slipped” and fell, per KSL. She advised the group, while waiting for emergency services to arrive, to move the injured man. “I knew we needed to move him because the water was so cold. We couldn’t leave him in that water for the time it would take for crews to get there,” she told the outlet.
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“We needed something to put on his head to help with the bleeding and this guy rips off his shirt and throws it on me, so we put that on his head, and several of us picked him up and moved him to a dry area over on the rocks,” Anderson recalled to NBC News, who reported that the man is a grandfather.
The search and rescue team eventually arrived and the man was airlifted to the hospital.
“Alongside Layton Fire Department, the 64-year-old man was treated with emergency care, placed onto a stretcher and hoisted out of the canyon by life flight,” DCSO said, per the release. “The helicopter landed in a nearby parking lot to transfer the patient to an ambulance for further treatment and hospitalization.”
The man suffered a shattered kneecap and broken femur, KSL reported. Doctors confirmed to the outlet that he had no spinal or brain injuries in the fall.
Layton City Fire Department Facebook
School nurse Anderson and emergency responders rescued a hiker after he fell in Adams Canyon, Utah, on May 26
The hiker is currently recovering from his injuries, according to authorities.
Anderson called the rescue a “miracle” and is grateful she was there to help.
“I am absolutely filled with gratitude,” she told KSL. “…I didn’t do anything heroic. I helped. And I believe anyone would have done the same thing in that situation.”
Read the original article on People
