A 35-year-old man died Sunday after his ATV went over a 30-foot embankment in Cache County — but a child who was riding with him was "miraculously" unharmed, investigators said.
The man, identified as Core Pimentel, was riding with a group between Logan Canyon and Black Smith Fork Canyon late Sunday afternoon when the wreck occurred, said Lt. Eric Stucki of the Utah Division of State Parks and Recreation. The man was riding ahead of the group, with his 6-year-old son also on the vehicle, Stucki said.
The rest of the group was too far behind Pimentel to see why he drove off the embankment, Stucki said, and they don’t know how the son managed to escape unscathed. It isn’t clear whether the boy fell or jumped off the ATV before the crash, or whether he went down the embankment and was not injured, Stucki said.
Pimentel sustained head injuries from striking a rock on the ground and was killed, Stucki said in a release. He was wearing a helmet, but one without a face covering. Investigators don’t know whether the boy was helmeted, he said.
Erin is a reporter who has previously been an outdoor columnist and worked the crime beat. She was the lead reporter on The Tribune's Pulitzer-winning coverage of campus sexual assault. She has worked at newspapers in Michigan and Iowa and taught English for two years at teacher-training colleges in China.