TV star, sister help injured woman at Utah national park

MOAB, Utah — A woman who fainted and hit her head on a rock after stopping to rest in Utah’s Arches National Park woke up to hear a familiar voice and wondered if she might be watching television.

Minnie John of Oradell, New Jersey, then questioned whether she might know the woman who was with the doctor helping her, or if she was famous, according to a post on Facebook.

“Her sister the doctor asked me to guess and I told her I just hit my head, I can’t remember. She said smiling ‘Modern Family’ and I said of course!,” John recounted about how she finally recognized Julie Bowen from her role on the long-running comedy series.

In her Aug. 3 post, John said she had been on a “bucket list” trip to Arches and hiking to see Delicate Arch, a four-story sandstone arch perched on the rim of a deep red rock canyon, for an hour and a half when she could not go any farther. She told her husband and son to go ahead as she rested along the trail, her head in her hands.

Julie Bowen and her sister Annie told her that their guide had seen her fall face forward on a rock, with her glasses breaking her fall, she said. They cleaned her up and gave her electrolytes as Julie Bowen assured her she was going to be OK, John said. They used her phone to call her son and some people selflessly ran ahead to find him, about 20 minutes ahead, to let them know what had happened, John said.

John said she fractured her nose and received five stitches later at the hospital. She expressed gratitude to God for sending people to help her.

“Daredevil or dumb as can be, I still consider this trek up the mountain as one of my proudest achievements in my life. Sometimes you need to take those chances in life to live to experience heights and depths,” she wrote.