SEVIER COUNTY, Utah – Seven members of a youth group from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were hospitalized Thursday after lightning struck near their hiking trail in south-central Utah.

The Sevier County Sheriff’s Office said a group of around 50 members were near an area known as Fremont Junction when the sudden rainstorm happened around 1:45 p.m. local time.

“Two of the youth were experiencing some serious symptoms and were flown via medical helicopter to Primary children’s hospital in Lehi. The rest of the youth were taken to Gunnison hospital and Sevier Valley Hospital,” deputies stated.

All of the injuries were thought to be non-life threatening, and the rest of the members were transported safely off the hiking trail.

SOUTHWEST MONSOON SEASON SHOWS SIGNS OF LIFE AFTER SLUGGISH START

Authorities praised the swift response of multiple agencies involved in the remote rescue operation.

The thunderstorm that triggered the rainfall and the lightning us part of an uptick of the monsoon season that has been scarce across the region.

The Southwest monsoon season typically kicks off around June 15 and lasts through late September, but its activity varies dramatically year by year.

Some communities in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and West Texas see half of their annual precipitation during these months, which is vital for the replenishment of waterways.

Lightning often accompanies the strongest storms, which can spark wildfires where dry vegetation exists.

FOX Weather App photo of radar over Utah

(FOX Weather)

LIGHTNING FATALITIES WERE SECOND-LOWEST ON RECORD IN 2023, SAFETY COUNCIL SAYS

Every year, hundreds of millions of lightning bolts occur throughout the U.S. but only a handful become deadly.

Data compiled by the National Lightning Safety Council shows fishing is one of the top activities where most deaths occur.

In 2023, 14 people were killed by lightning strikes, with many taking part in outdoor sporting activities when thunder roared.

SALT LAKE CITY — The United States Supreme Court sidestepped a decision Thursday on whether federal law requires states to provide pregnancy terminations in medical emergencies even in cases where the procedure would otherwise be illegal.

Instead, the court’s opinion – which stems from Idaho’s near-total abortion ban – kicked the legal questions surfaced in the case back to the lower courts and reinstated a previous ruling that will allow doctors in the state to perform emergency abortions in the meantime.

That means women in Idaho are unlikely – at least for now – to be airlifted to nearby states like Utah for the procedure.

“After today, there will be a few months — maybe a few years — during which doctors may no longer need to airlift pregnant patients out of Idaho,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote of the decision’s impact, in an opinion that dissented in part and concurred in part with the broader court’s ruling.

But the dismissal of the case leaves open key legal questions and sets up the potential that the issue of emergency room abortion care will come to the court again in the future.

In her brief, Jackson was critical of the court’s indecision, arguing that the ruling represented “not a victory” for Idaho patients but a “delay” – and that doctors still face the difficult decision of “whether to provide emergency medical care in the midst of highly charged legal circumstances.”

Conservatives Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joined Jackson and her liberal colleagues, Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, in the 6-3 opinion, which was erroneously posted online Wednesday. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented.

In his opinion, Alito also argued that the legal questions in the case – which come as abortion has become a political flashpoint in the U.S. presidential election – should have been decided, saying it was as “ripe for decision as it will ever be.”

“Apparently, the Court has simply lost the will to decide the easy but emotional and highly politicized question that the case presents,” he wrote.

Alito indicated that he would have ruled against the Biden administration’s interpretation that the federal Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires hospital emergency rooms that receive Medicare funding to provide treatment to people experiencing medical emergencies, supersedes Idaho’s abortion ban.

Idaho law allows doctors to terminate a pregnancy for any woman with emergency health complications who is clearly on the brink of death. But it’s quiet on the question of what to do when pregnancy complications put someone’s health at risk but don’t imminently risk her life.

Under threat of jail time and loss of their medical licenses, Idaho doctors said prior to Thursday’s ruling that they sometimes had no choice under such circumstances but to send a woman across state lines by helicopter or advise her to otherwise get to another state for treatment.

“Those transfers measure the difference between the life-threatening conditions Idaho will allow hospitals to treat and the health-threatening conditions it will not,” Kagan wrote in a concurring opinion Thursday.

Some women were transferred to reliably blue states like Washington and Oregon. But Utah’s capital was “one of the places we’ll tend to call first,” Stacy Seyb, a physician specializing in maternal-fetal medicine at St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise, told FOX 13 earlier this year.

While abortion remains legal up to 18 weeks in Utah, a near-total ban is currently on hold pending a ruling from the Utah Supreme Court.

Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, R-Clearfield, sponsored the abortion ban in the House and noted in a statement that “today’s Supreme Court ruling has no direct implications on Utah’s strong pro-life laws, including our trigger law.” “Utah will continue to stand up for policies that protect the unborn,” she added.

Thursday’s ruling does mean doctors in Idaho likely won’t have to airlift patients to Utah and other states, which Planned Parenthood Association of Utah Chief Corporate Affairs Office Shireen Ghorbani called a “small victory.”

“But what should have happened honestly is the Supreme Court should have said you have a right to emergency medical treatment, you’ve had that right for 40 years and you should have the right to an abortion if that is the appropriate medical care for the complication for the experience that you’re having,” she argued.

Regardless of the court’s decision, Ghorbani said she expects some Idaho women will still have to come to Utah for abortion care.

“Twenty two percent of their OBGYNs have left the state, they are running very low on specialists in maternal-fetal medicine,” Ghorbani noted. “That reality has now been created for people who live in Idaho. So there may still be people from Idaho who are seeking emergency medical care in Utah and this is what happens when we ring this bell.”

Recently released data from the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, showed that 7% of all abortions performed in the state last year were for non-residents coming to Utah from Idaho. The data showed some Utah women also traveled out of state in 2023, to both Nevada and Colorado.

The Big 12 released its opponent schedule matrix for men’s and women’s basketball on Thursday, giving a full picture of what the University of Utah will face during its first season in the league.

Utah men’s basketball 2024-25 Big 12 opponent matrix

• Home-and-away: Baylor, BYU, Cincinnati, Oklahoma State, West Virginia
• Home-only: Arizona State, Colorado, Kansas, Kansas State, Texas Tech
• Away-only: Arizona, UCF, Houston, Iowa State, TCU

What stands out?

The Utes’ 20-game conference schedule is highlighted by getting blue blood program Kansas to come to the Huntsman Center in the only matchup between the two schools during the upcoming season.

Utah and BYU will play a home-and-home, and the Utes will also play twice against two other teams appearing in early top 25 projections, Baylor and Cincinnati.

Utah travels to Arizona in the lone matchup with the Wildcats this season, and also must play Houston and Iowa State — two other projected top 25 teams — in their only games against the Cougars and Cyclones, respectively.

The Utes also host Kansas State and Texas Tech in their only matchups this season, as well as two other programs, Arizona State and Colorado, also jumping from the Pac-12 to the Big 12 this year.

Utah women’s basketball 2024-25 Big 12 opponent matrix

• Home-and-away: Arizona, Arizona State, BYU
• Home-only: UCF, Colorado, Houston, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State
• Away-only: Baylor, Cincinnati, Iowa State, TCU, Texas Tech, West Virginia

What stands out?

Utah’s 18-game league schedule includes home-and-away matchups with three teams, and they’re all longstanding rivals with the Utes: former Pac-12 compatriots Arizona and Arizona State, as well as in-state rival BYU.

The Utes will play three of the four Big 12 teams ranked ahead of them in ESPN’s way-too-early top 25 on the road only — Baylor, Iowa State and West Virginia.

Of the five teams Utah will face at home, Colorado (who finished last year ranked No. 15) and Kansas State (another projected top 25 team) highlight that list.