Utah hiker’s foot got caught by a boulder —then it rolled on top of her, officials say

A 37-year-old woman descending a steep, slick Utah trail with her husband and a friend died Saturday afternoon when a boulder crushed her, The Gephardt Daily reported.

“She stepped on the rock, this rock started moving, her foot got caught, she fell over in front of the rock and the rock slid over on top of her,” said Lt. Travis Scharmann with the Tooele County Sheriff’s Office, KSTU reported.

When her husband and friend called 911 from the trail near Great Salt Lake at 3 p.m. Saturday, they “thought the woman still had a pulse,” The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

By the time rescuers made the trek “straight up the mountain” from the trailhead through snow, she had died, according to the publication.

Rescuers could not lift the rock off her.

“It’s way too heavy, they’ve had three or four people try to move it off of her at one time and they couldn’t budge it,” Scharmann said, KSTU reported.

Rescuers eventually used the Jaws of Life to lift the rock off the woman’s body, according to KSTU. The Salt Lake Tribune reported her body was taken off the mountain at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Scharmann said conditions on Stansbury Island, where the accident took place, are extremely slick and advised against hiking there, The Deseret News reported. But he said he could not recall a similar incident there.

“This is a normal area for people to come up hiking so this is just an unfortunate accident,” he said, according to the publication.

Officials have not released the woman’s identity pending notification of the rest of her family, The Gephardt Daily reported. She is from the Salt Lake City area.