‘Time is of the essence’: Emery County crews rescue man wedged in slot canyon walls

EMERY COUNTY, Utah ( ABC4 ) — A man was rescued from the Zero Gravity slot canyon in Emery County after becoming wedged between canyon walls.

According to Emery County Sheriff Tyson Huntington , around 10:30 p.m. dispatch received a report of three people stuck in the slot canyon via a Garmin device. He said one person was wedged between the walls which made the situation even more pressing.

“Our experience in the past has shown that when someone is wedged between canyon walls, time is of the essence,” he said in a social media post .

Search and Rescue volunteers retrieved the equipment necessary and arrived at Zero Gravity after midnight. Huntington said the team built the rope system to prepare for the rescue before sending search and rescue members down the canyon.

Crew members used ropes to drop below the man who was wedged and “loosened him from the canyon walls,” according to Huntington.

All three hikers were safely rescued thanks to the rescue team and the Department of Public Safety, which deployed a helicopter and a two-man task force.

“The rescue was a success and all victims were saved and were able to avoid serious injury. Our victims were extremely grateful for the services they received. If it wasn’t for the SAR Team and their abilities, the outcome may have been quite unfavorable,” Huntington said.

The sheriff said the search and rescue crews arrived home around 6:30 a.m. “just in time to go to work.”

“I cannot overstate the importance of our Search and Rescue Team. All of our members are just regular people with huge hearts and a desire to serve others at the cost of themselves,” he wrote.

He called the Emery County Search and Rescue team a “band of brothers” and said they “serve in the purest sense of the word.”

“In the past, talk of compensation came up and the team collectively scoffed at the idea so loud that the National Weather Service noticed an anomaly in the wind patterns over Castle Country,” Huntington joked. “We are lucky to have them.”

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