Utah man shoves friend to safety before being killed by boulder

SALT LAKE CITY -- Seth Buhr could not escape the crashing, 5-ton boulder coming down on him. But he could shove a friend to safety before he was crushed, and on Thursday he was hailed as a hero for his final selfless act.

"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.

Buhr, a 22-year-old student at LDS Business School in Salt Lake City, was with Smith and two other friends on a hike in the Wasatch National Forest when the accident happened Wednesday afternoon.

The group had hiked to Donut Falls, a popular spot in Big Cottonwood Canyon about 15 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, where spring runoff cascades through a circular opening in the rock.

They had just hiked above the falls, warily navigating loose rocks for a better view at the top. They climbed down to a pool at the base of the falls, with Smith and Buhr one side and friends Dara Jacobberger and Joe Freed on the other.

"The part where we were we felt pretty safe. We felt we had passed the dangerous part of the trail," Jacobberger said.

The tranquility of the moment was interrupted by the clatter of some sliding rocks, then Freed saw the boulder above Buhr and Smith move. Freed and Jacobberger screamed warnings, but Buhr didn't have enough time to get out of the path of the rock.

Jacobberger said she saw the boulder -- 4 feet tall and 4 feet wide -- hit Buhr in the back as he shoved Smith into the pool.

"I was in shock the whole time," Jacobberger remembered. "For the first few seconds, I didn't really realize what was going on."

Buhr moaned briefly as his friends tried frantically to lift the 10,000-pound boulder, Freed said. But they couldn't budge the huge rock, and Buhr's moans ceased.

Buhr returned last summer from a two-year mission in Chile for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was someone who could walk into a group of strangers and immediately make friends, or would quickly work to patch up disagreements, Jacobberger said.

His heroism was no surprise to Jacobberger.

"He always wanted to help people out. Some people would say Seth was self-righteous and a goody-goody, but Seth seriously couldn't do anything bad," she said. "He was just good. A crazy guy who was very energetic all the time."

This was the second time in a month a loose boulder hurt a hiker in Utah. Aron Ralston was climbing alone in a remote area of Canyonlands National Park in southeast Utah when his arm was pinned by an 800-pound boulder that shifted as he climbed around it.

Ralston spent days trapped by the rock before using a pocket knife to cut off his arm, then walking miles to safety May 1.

Rock shifts happen naturally and are common in the spring as snow melts. But it's much more common earlier in the season, said Loren Kroenke, district ranger for the U.S. Forest Service in Salt Lake County.

"It seems like an incredibly unfortunate situation. As far as I know there was nothing going on that would explain why this rock would move when it did," Kroenke said. "Rockfall goes on constantly in the mountains. Most of the time people aren't there to witness it."

Smith remained shaken a day after the accident, but was willing to talk. She said she wanted people to know what kind of person Buhr was and be aware of safety in the outdoors.

"This wasn't anything that could have been prevented or predicted. People need to be aware of danger, not go looking for it," Smith said. "The only thing you can do is accept it and know that whoever has passed on is in a better place. I know that Seth's happy now."