Rock kills hiker

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – A hiker was crushed to death by a falling 5-ton boulder after he pushed a friend out of the rock’s path, authorities said.

“The last thing I saw him do was push me out of the way before he was crushed by that rock. So he pretty much died a hero,” Jeannette Smith said Thursday.

Seth Buhr, 22, was hiking Wednesday with Smith and two other friends in Big Cottonwood Canyon, about 15 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, when the boulder fell as the group was taking a break beside a waterfall, Salt Lake County sheriff’s spokeswoman Peggy Faulkner said.

Two of the hikers noticed a shift in the rocks above Buhr and Smith and yelled for them get out of the way. Buhr, a student at LDS Business School in Salt Lake City, pushed Smith into a pool before the boulder crashed down on him.

“She’d have been killed. He saved her life,” Faulkner said. “Just a freaky accident. Nobody was above the rock. It’s scary stuff, nature.”

Buhr moaned briefly as his friends tried frantically to lift the boulder, said Joe Freed, who was also on the hike. But they couldn’t budge the huge rock, and Buhr’s moans ceased. A rescue crew used ropes and pulleys to lift the boulder so Buhr’s body could be removed.

AP-ES-05-22-03 2133EDT