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VIRGIN, Washington County — A trip down a familiar road in southern Utah turned into a near-death experience for La Verkin resident Chandler Harris and her 2-year-old son, Cooper.
While driving home from a friend's cabin around 6 p.m. on Sept. 12, 2015, Harris encountered loose gravel on a hairpin turn along a section of Kolob Terrace Road inside Zion National Park.
"I just wasn't expecting it on that turn," Harris said. "I just went from fishtailing to just straight off the cliff."
A tree finally stopped Harris' SUV from falling farther down the cliff. After rolling several times, the GMC Jimmy ended up upside down, crushing her and Cooper inside.
"I woke up and my face was two inches from the dirt; I tried to move my head and I couldn't move it," she said. "I couldn't hear my son, so I just started screaming and I just screamed for a couple minutes and I passed out again."
While she was unconscious, two motorists saw the dust from the accident and stopped. It wasn't until they turned off their car's engine that they heard Cooper's cries from inside the wreckage. In the dark, the two men used a pocket knife to cut the toddler from his car seat.
At the same time, Jeremy Scholzen, a pediatric dentist who was traveling to his cabin with his family, came upon the accident scene and quickly jumped into action.
"I ran down the hill and I got Cooper and I brought him up the hill," Scholzen recalled. "I put him in my truck and we started wiping all of the blood off of his face."
It was at that time that those around Scholzen recognized who Cooper was and realized he wasn't just helping strangers; it was his own extended family.
"Do you know these people?" Scholzen remembered asking a relative. "'That's Chandler down there,' and I was like, 'You've got to be kidding me.'"
After attending to Cooper's minor wounds, Scholzen ran back down to the flattened car where passers-by and emergency responders were working frantically to figure out a way to free his cousin.
"I couldn't even see where her head was," Scholzen said. "Her head was sticking out of the window, and it was under the roof."
Harris' father was also on scene after relatives called him to say she had gone off the road.
"She was literally wadded up in a ball upside down," Pat Harris remembered seeing as he approached the crumpled SUV. "They'd lean on the vehicle and it would rock back and forth."
While watching the complicated rescue operation, Scholzen's focus turned to his cousin, trapped in the dark wreckage, scared and alone.
"I just thought, it has to be lonely being in there and not having anybody in there with you," he said. "If I was in the situation, I would want somebody to just sit and rub my face and tell me it's going to fine."
Scholzen crawled up underneath the car so he could hold Harris' head steady, check her vitals and dig away the dirt and bugs. But mostly, he reassured her that everything would be OK, even though he started to doubt whether the rescue operation would be successful.
"I didn't know whether she was going to make it or not; I was really, really, really worried," he said. "I just kept praying, 'Please don't let her die.'"
As the four long hours of uncertainty ticked by, Harris said she wanted to fall asleep but was kept awake by Scholzen's constant attention.
"I felt like I was going to die," Harris said. "Why is it taking so long? Why can't they figure something out after this long?"
"They were keeping track of the time and realizing that if it went much longer she would definitely lose her arm," her father, Pat, recalled. "We're going to just do whatever it takes to get her out."
It was family members who finally insisted on using one of their own saws to cut the steering column to free Harris. The plan worked and crews then hiked her to an ambulance to take her to a waiting medical helicopter.
"They were planning to amputate and they told the ER to amputate," Harris said.
But doctors saved her arm. After a series of surgeries, she's regained full function. She says the ordeal also gave her a new outlook on life.
"I was really kind of cynical, and negative and a glass-half-empty type of person," she said. "And it just made me realize, wow, I really am loved."
The experience also changed Scholzen.
"I don't think I slept for days," he said. "It affected me just so much."
Since the accident, Harris' family has donated equipment to the area's all-volunteer search and rescue team so that they have the tools they need to help the next accident victim.
"You don't realize how much your family means to you and how much you really are loved until something like that happens," she said. "It made me appreciate everyone in my life so much more and appreciate every day so much more."
Email: legan@ksl.com Twitter: @laddegan
