Refrigerator-sized boulder rolls onto climber causing him to plunge 30 feet in Utah

A boulder started to break loose near Dalton Freeman Snow as he was climbing a Utah canyon.

The boulder was the size of a refrigerator, Fox 13 reported. It rolled onto Snow and caused him to plunge at least 30 feet toward the ground, according to the news outlet.

The rock nearly ripped off his hand in the process, ABC 4 reported.

“I saw my hand dangling off my wrist and the blood pouring out, and the blood everywhere,” Snow told KDVR.

Snow had been climbing with friends on April 12 in Moab, a popular tourist destination home to some of the state’s most popular national parks. He’s gone climbing several times before, and he knows all the techniques and gear necessary to do so safely, Snow told KDVR.

His rope caught him and may have saved his life when the boulder came crashing down, ABC 4 reported. Then his friends, who had been trained to handle emergencies, stepped in to help.

“They helped stabilize him, improvised a tourniquet on his arm, and kept him warm for hours,” Snow’s friend Kiley Hartigan told ABC 4. “They contacted the search and rescue team who hauled him up in a litter over a hundred feet to where a helicopter was waiting for him.”

Snow broke five ribs, along with his collarbone, scapula and pelvis, according to FOX 13. He has been in the hospital and will need several surgeries to recover.

This story was originally published April 28, 2022 at 1:06 PM with the headline "Refrigerator-sized boulder rolls onto climber causing him to plunge 30 feet in Utah."