Skiers describe trying to help avalanche victim near Utah resort
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Daniel Woodruff, KSL
SOUTH JORDAN, Utah (KSL) – Several friends said they tried to help the victim of a deadly avalanche Thursday near Brighton Ski Resort.
Siblings Maggie and Harrison Garner were with their friend Darius Christensen skiing in the backcountry. They said they were in the same area where an avalanche killed a young girl.
Authorities with the Unified Police Department said the girl, whose name and age were not immediately released, was with her family when the slide happened.
RELATED | Girl dies after being caught in Utah avalanche
“It was kind of just like a surreal thing,” said Maggie Garner, who studies at Utah Valley University. “You were like, ‘What’s even really happening right now?'”
“It was just scary and crazy,” added her brother Harrison Garner, a junior at Bingham High School.
The group said as they were skiing in the area, which police said was out of bounds of Brighton Ski Resort, they noticed the snow looked different.
“And I was like, ‘Oh, it was an avalanche,'” said Christensen, a 9th grader at South Jordan Middle School.
When they learned a girl was buried, they said they quickly joined others to start probing the snow and search for her.
“In a moment of dire need, everybody came together and was like, ‘We need to get to work and save this girl,'” Christensen said.
They worked to help dig her out, but she didn’t survive. Unified police said the girl died at the hospital. It was the second deadly avalanche in Utah in two days.
“I was just super sad, just thinking what … if it was like my family member, what I would be doing,” Harrison Garner said, “and just thinking it was super sad for that family.”
“It was just super scary to think how everything could go wrong that quick,” Christensen added.
His mother, Heidi Christensen, told KSL she’s warned her son to stay out of the backcountry. But she’s grateful he and his friends tried to help in someone’s time of need.
“My heart sank for that poor family because I can’t imagine going through something like that,” she said, adding that she hopes they find peace. “You just hope that they’re surrounded by a lot of love and compassion, because none of us ever know what is coming our way, and freak accidents happen.”
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