School nurse helps rescue grandfather who fell during hike at Utah canyon

Ashley Anderson was hiking in with her two kids and her dogs on Memorial Day when she heard yelling.

“I look over and I didn’t even know what I was looking at at first,” she said. “It took me a second to register that it was a body.”

A 64-year-old grandfather had fallen 20 feet down waterfall in Utah’s Adams Canyon. Anderson, a school nurse, sprang into action and used her training to help him.

She told NBC affiliate KSL of Salt Lake City that the man had an “obviously broken” leg and that his head was “sliced open and bleeding.”

When Anderson arrived, she and other hikers who had pitched in to help moved him out of the cold water that was covering him. She then began first aid.

She said she told the group she needed something to stop bleeding on the man’s head.

“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.

Rescue teams responded, using a helicopter to drop rescuers into the canyon before they lifted the man back up to safety.

Authorities said that the man was hiking with his children and grandchildren and that he fell after they got separated, KSL reported.

Anderson told the station the man’s family said he slipped and fell into the canyon. The station reported he shattered his kneecap and broke his femur but is expected to make a full recovery.

“I kind of think that I did what anyone would do,” Anderson said. “I don’t feel like I did anything like more heroic or more incredible.”