American Football Team Help Rescue Woman Hanging Off Cliff

A college football team in the US came to the rescue of a climber who was left dangling off a 70ft cliff after her hair got tangled in her equipment. You can watch footage of the rescue here:

The Dixie State University football team were on their annual trip to Sugarloaf, in St. George, Utah, when a panicked man desperately pleaded for their help.

His partner had been trapped over the edge of the cliff for 45 minutes after her hair got caught in her ropes and she was unable to pull herself up.

The boys wasted no time in getting to work and used a rope system to tug her back up the cliff, known as 'Dixie Rock'.

Speaking to ABC 4, Head Coach Paul Peterson said: "The gentleman she was with asked for some help and we jumped right to it. I think anybody would step up and do the same thing.

"We had plenty of muscle to be able to get her up pretty quickly."

Twitter/@LoniFangupo

The woman, who was in her 20s, was severely dehydrated and shocked but suffered no injuries as a result of the hairy incident, which took place on 7 August.

Freshman cornerback Micah Gardner said: "She was just like, 'uh, next time I'll just tie my hair up', I was like, 'next time?'

"If that was me, I don't know if I'm getting back on there!"

But while the team deserve credit for the way they responded to the situation, defensive coach Hebron Fangupo singled out Arizona police officer Scott Veach for praise.

In a tweet, he said: "The man in the grey shirt aka the HERO is @scottveach1. Commander Scott Veach displayed his willingness to protect and serve by placing himself in harm's way to save this young lady.

"I watched in awe as he stood at the very edge with nothing to secure him. Real HEROES at WORK!!!"

But Commander Veach said he couldn't have done it without the team, adding that he didn't think about his own safety as he could see the climber was in trouble.

Twitter/@LoniFangupo

Speaking to Fox 10, he said: "I had the idea, we got all this muscle behind us. We have about 100 football players and thought, 'why don't we just pull her up or let her down?'

"We just kind of directed them and they pulled her up to the ledge and another guy came up and helped me and we pulled her up on the ledge."

He continued: "I definitely couldn't have gotten her up by myself because when I first got to her, I grabbed her hand, and when they are pulling, it literally pulls her against the rock, so I was telling her to use her hands and feet, and she told me her legs were numb and she couldn't use them.

"Several people came up to me and said 'we were really worried about you falling off'. It never even crossed my mind. I was focused on getting her up because I could tell she was in trouble."

Topics: Awesome, Inspirational, US News

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey