Woman hit while paddleboarding in Bear Lake
Jun 16, 2026, 4:00 PM
LAKETOWN, Rich County — A woman was hit in a possible hit-and-run while paddleboarding in Bear Lake.
Rachel Wamsley was about a hundred yards out into the lake, deep enough that she couldn’t touch the bottom, where she believes she was hit.
It was a calm evening on the lake, and Wamsley had a half hour to herself after a tough day as a volunteer EMT.
“I just went out paddleboarding,” Wamsley said.
The 25-year-old said not many people were out on the lake, but she noticed someone jet skiing in the distance. She said she was sitting on the paddleboard and watched as the jet skier came her way.
“The next thing I know, they were right there, and I was in the water,” Wamsley said.
She doesn’t remember much.
“Just the Jet Ski buzzing and getting real close,” Wamsley said.
Her board damaged and body bruised, Wamsley then had to swim to get her paddleboard before going back to shore.
The jet skier was nowhere in sight.
“My face is pretty banged up. I’ve got a black eye, my arms are bruised, my ribs are bruised and on my hips there’s a big bruise,” Wamsley said. “I felt like I was hit by a truck.”
She called her team of volunteer EMTs to help her. They rushed Wamsley to the nearest hospital in Logan, an ambulance ride Wamsley said she can’t remember.
Doctors believe she has a concussion.
“I don’t like being on the gurney on that end; I like being on the other end,” Wamsley said.
Her father, Eric, was returning from a rodeo in Idaho when he received a call that his daughter had been hit by a Jet Ski.
“Those aren’t bruises you get from falling off your paddleboard in Bear Lake,” he said.
The father picked his daughter up from the hospital because the EMTs were called out to another incident. He’s grateful she’s OK but knows how dangerously close they were to telling a different story.
“There’s a good probability she could’ve drowned,” he said. “The fact that no one stopped to help, that’s the most disheartening thing for me.”
Wamsley took a few days to recover but will be back out volunteering with her EMTs and knowing how lucky she is to be around.
“There was someone else looking out for me,” Wamsley said. “This could’ve been very different.”
