Fifty-two-year-old Dean Ririe was flown to Intermountain Medical Center, where he was being evaluated in the trauma department, according to Intermountain spokesman Jess Gomez.
A county spokesman said the man did not return from a Sunday fishing trip. His wife could not contact him, so she drove up the canyon Monday and found his car around 9:40 a.m.
At about the same time, a call came into county dispatchers reporting that a man was found calling for help from a creek. Ririe reportedly had slipped and become wedged between two boulders in waist-deep, icy-cold water.
Salt Lake City resident Brian Malin's 11-year-old son Alex found Ririe just after breakfast. He was walking alongside the creek, looking for wood for their camp site, when he heard the fisherman cry for help.
Brian Malin said the man was leaning against a bigger boulder, which he described as half the size of a Volkswagen. Meanwhile, his leg was pinned against another boulder beneath the water.
The man was shivering and hugging himself. His lips were blue and he was hoarse from shouting all night long, Brian Malin said.
While his father went for help, Alex stayed with Ririe to keep him company and talk with him until rescuers could make their way down.
When the crew of approximately three dozen showed up, Brian Malin said, they had to rotate in and out of the water every 15 minutes or so because it was so cold it was causing their legs to go numb. He described the crews as using crowbars and and hydraulic shafts to free the man's leg.
"Out here at night it is pitch black - and being in that river overnight, I can't even imagine how scared he must have been," Brian Malin said. Even as close as their camp site was to Ririe, "we couldn't even hear him. And that water feels really cold. It's coming down off melting ice and snow. ... He was not bleeding or cut, but mentally he was probably pretty shaken."
Scott Sommerdorf contributed to this report
