UTAH COUNTY, Utah, Jan. 27, 2019 (Gephardt Daily) — Rescue crews were in the process of bringing an intoxicated man down from the hot springs on Diamond Fork Road after he was found lying on a rock, unconscious, Sunday night.
“He’s a large man. He was unconscious, up at the Diamond Fork hot pots,” Utah County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Spencer Cannon said. “Some people were trying to help him, but he was intoxicated and unable to walk.”
Cannon said the person who reported the situation to authorities had to walk down the trail to make the phone call.
“I got the impression he wasn’t with this group of people,” Cannon told Gephardt Daily. “I think they just saw him there and got concerned. People go up there alone fairly often.”
Officials were called at about 8 p.m., and search and rescue crews were still on scene more than two hours later, figuring out how to bring the man down.
“He was conscious and alert at 9:40,” Cannon said, but crews determined that the man would not be able to navigate the slope on foot, even with help.
“He’s a large man, which complicates things. They’re planning to bring him down in a Stokes basket, probably on wheels,” Cannon said.
A Stokes basket is a stretcher or litter used to transport a person over rough terrain.
“He’s not in a life-threatening condition,” Cannon said. “And getting down, it’s kind of a gentle grade for about a mile and a half.
“It’s just that the whole thing is complicated by his size — and lack of good judgment.”
