Woman survives plunge above Yosemite Falls

A woman hiking above Upper Yosemite Fall in Yosemite National Park...

A woman hiking above Upper Yosemite Fall in Yosemite National Park this weekend survived a nearly 25-feet plunge, officials said Monday, landing on a granite slab along the creek and suffering a major pelvic injury that prevented her from walking.

A park service rescue team responded Saturday afternoon to the woman, identified as a 28-year-old visitor from the Netherlands, who was about 100 yards from the trail and just above where Yosemite Creek drops 1,400 feet.

The visitor was taken by helicopter to Ahwahnee Meadow, where an ambulance drove her to a hospital outside the park, according to the California Highway Patrol. She was initially described as conscious and alert but thought to have suffered a fractured pelvis.

“There’s only two bones in your body when broken that you can actually die from: the pelvis and your femur,” said CHP Officer Johnny Fisher, whose agency furnished the helicopter for the rescue. “That’s what elevated this response.”

How the woman fell and what she had been doing at the time were not immediately clear.

The trail to the top of Upper Yosemite Fall is one of the park’s oldest and most popular, ascending 2,700 feet above the floor of Yosemite Valley.

Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander