Paighten HarkinsA Utah woman who died Saturday after she fell off a boulder while hiking near the Great Salt Lake and the rock rolled and crushed her has been identified as 37-year-old Salt Lake City resident Sarah Knight, according to FOX 13.
When Tooele County Sheriff’s Office deputies first got a call from Knight’s hiking partners — her husband and a friend — the callers thought she still had a pulse. That was just before 3 p.m., Tooele County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. Travis Scharmann said.
Once the search-and-rescue crew hiked through the snow about a half-mile “straight up a mountain,” the crew declared Knight dead. Scharmann said the trio of hikers was finishing their outing Saturday afternoon and descended into a rocky area, where the woman stepped on a large boulder. The boulder shifted, and she fell forward, and the rock then rolled on top of her. Officials believe she was killed instantly.
The group was about a mile from the trailhead.
Crews got King’s body off the mountain at 7:30 p.m. and sent it to the state medical examiner’s office to determine her official cause of death, Scharmann said.
A GoFundMe page posted Monday seeking money to help Knight’s family with expenses associated with her death describes her as a hard worker and selfless friend. The campaign had already generated nearly $14,000 as of Wednesday evening — nearly three times as much as the original fundraising goal.
See more at FOX 13.
Editor’s note: The Salt Lake Tribune and FOX 13 are content-sharing partners.
- Salt Lake Tribune reporter Taylor Stevens contributed to this report.
Paighten is an Enterprise reporter at The Salt Lake Tribune. She covers a variety of topics, including business, health, growth and the legal justice system — sometimes all at once. She is from southern Oklahoma, and lived and worked in the state, most recently at the Tulsa World, before starting at The Tribune in October 2017.