iPhone alert saves woman and dog after they’re swept 200 feet down canyon, rescuers say
As a woman was walking with her dog in a Utah canyon, she heard the sounds of rushing water.
The woman tried to reach higher ground Aug. 24 as flood waters moved in Mary Jane Canyon, the Grand County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue said in an Aug. 27 Facebook post.
“She reached a sand bank above the creek with her dog, but the rising water eroded the sand, sending both her and the dog into the flood waters,” rescuers said.
The woman, who lost her shoes in the flash flood, sent an “emergency satellite SOS using her iPhone,” according to rescuers.
Minutes later, rescuers said she got a text message saying her SOS had failed.
Thinking no one received her message, she started hiking out of the canyon barefoot and “covered in mud from head to toe,” rescuers said.
Her message, however, did reach the sheriff’s office dispatch a few minutes later, according to rescuers.
Though the message had little information, rescuers said it did include the woman’s location.
Rescuers said they sent a team to hike the canyon, as well as a medical helicopter.
While rescuers didn’t find anyone at the original coordinates, the air crew “spotted the woman and her dog about 2 miles downstream.”
The ground team reached the uninjured woman shortly before 9:30 p.m. and helped her out of the canyon.
Professor Creek and Mary Jane Canyon Trail, near Moab about 250 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, is considered a “moderately challenging” nearly 8-mile trek, which takes about three hours to complete, according to AllTrails.
This story was originally published August 28, 2023 at 10:11 AM with the headline "iPhone alert saves woman and dog after they’re swept 200 feet down canyon, rescuers say."
