At least five people trapped by rock slide in Colorado mountains

DENVER (Reuters) - Mountain rescuers were dispatched on Monday to save at least five people buried by rubble from a rock slide in the Colorado Rockies southwest of Denver, officials said. The Chaffee County sheriff's department was alerted late Monday morning by an emergency-911 call from a woman reporting she had been struck in the head by a falling rock and that there five to seven people trapped in the avalanche, county spokeswoman Monica Broaddus told Reuters. She said rescue efforts were under way to reach five individuals still buried by in slide whose conditions were not immediately known. A sixth victim, described as a 13-year-old girl, was plucked from the rubble by a sheriff's deputy who was one of the first to arrive on the scene, Broaddus said. The girl was flown by helicopter to a Denver-area hospital about 130 miles away, the spokeswoman said. No further details on the circumstances of the slide or the conditions of the victims were immediately available. The avalanche occurred in a rugged backcountry area popular with hikers in the vicinity of the 14,000-foot (4,267-meter) tall Mount Princeton, one of the so-called Collegiate Peaks in Sawatch Range of the Rockies. (Reporting by Keith Coffman; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)