http://www.kcra.com/cnn-news/17656966/detail.html3 Hurt In Yosemite Rock Slide
2 Slides Reported In 2 Days
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. -- Three people were hurt Wednesday in a rock slide in Yosemite Valley, marking the second such incident within the past two days.
Four to six cabins were affected as rocks rolled into Curry Village shortly after 7 a.m., ranger Erik Skindrud said. People staying in other nearby cabins were forced to leave.
Skindrud said three people, including a child, were treated and released at the scene. The child suffered facial lacerations. Another person reported difficulty breathing. The nature of the third person's injuries was not immediately known.
Curry Village, a popular tourist destination that sits on the valley floor, includes 427 canvas tent cabins, 100 cabins with private baths and 18 standard motel rooms. Most of the cabins are empty at this time of year.
A sheer granite face towers above the camp, bringing some of Yosemite's rugged beauty within reach of visitors who pack the grounds.
The cabins site among rows among huge boulders, which geologists say are there because of prehistoric rock falls.
Tom Trujillo, of New Milford, Conn., who was attending photography classes at Yosemite Institute, saw the rock slide and ran toward it.
"People were starting to yell 'run, run' and kids started to scream."
-Witness Rena McClain
"Trees were crushed all over the place," said Trujillo over the sound of a hovering helicopter. "A couple of kids, 5th or 6th graders, were stumbling out of the area. I tried to picked them up, tried to get them out as fast as I could."
Trujillo said he helped one boy, with blood on his forehead and down his back, get out and find his mother.
"It was a really big mess," Trujillo said. "Tents were crushed, trees were knocked down, hard cabins were moved out of their positions, with bounders blocking their doorway."
Another photography student, Rena McClain, a nurse from Dover, Del., told The Associated Press in a telephone interview she had her back to granite face when she heard what sounded like a booming thunder clap. She whipped around and saw a giant cloud of rock and dust coming down.
"People were starting to yell 'run, run' and kids started to scream," said McClain.
As the dust settled, shaken teachers and chaperones gathered groups of high school students and tried to get head counts.
"The kids were crying," said McClain. "I tried to comfort them. I'm a nurse, my immediate response was 'What can I try to do to help'."
A rock slide Tuesday in the Staircase Falls area of Yosemite Valley destroyed an unoccupied tent cabin, an official said.
There were no injuries in the 2:30 p.m. event, but the area immediately around the slide in Curry Village was evacuated.
The 1,020-foot Staircase Falls cascades from Glacier Point to a meadow just east of Curry Village, which is also home to the winter ice rink and amphitheater.
A rock fall in the same area a year ago also resulted in no injuries, Skindrud said.
In 1996, a rock slide nearby sent as much as 162,000 tons of rock plummeting more than 2,000 feet, killing one visitor and felling 500 trees
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