ST. GEORGE — A crash on a popular mountain biking trail resulted in a cyclist being airlifted to the hospital with a potentially serious head injury Tuesday late morning.
Around 11:35 a.m., a 29-year-old cyclist on the Bearclaw Poppy Trial crashed his bike and received what was described as a serious-to-life threatening head wound, Washington County Sheriff’s Sgt. Darrell Cashin said.
A bystander who witnessed the accident and also happened to be a nurse told responders the man was in bad shape and going in and out of consciousness following the bike wreck.
Due to the potential nature of the injury, Intermountain’s Life Flight helicopter was called in. Once it arrived the helicopter’s medical team determined the man needed to be taken to back to St. George Regional Hospital for immediate care, Cashin said.
Life Flight will fly a patients straight to the hospital if the helicopter’s medical team consider it to be a “threat to life and limb” situation, Cashin added. Beyond this description of the man’s head injury, Cashin said he couldn’t speak to the addition or severity of any other possible injuries due to lack of information.
If not for the possible severity of the cyclist’s injury, Life Flight would have otherwise checked and cleared the man to be carried out by on-the-ground responders, or flown to a staging area where an ambulance was waiting, Cashin said.
It was noted by some of the responders that the cyclist appeared to be using what is known as a gravel bike – a bicycle lacking any form of suspension – while on the trail, Cashin said. However, it is unknown if that was a factor in the crash, he said.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Team responded to the incident, as did personal personnel from the St. George Fire Department and Sana Clara-Ivins public safety.
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