Alaska News

Photos: Iditarod veteran Karin Hendrickson recovers from crash

When an SUV slammed into musher Karin Hendrickson's four-wheeler Tuesday evening, she was thrown into the air and her dogs ran from the scene of the accident. She landed in a ditch about 20 feet away, then began making phone calls.

"I just started trying to get ahold of local mushers to say, 'My dogs are loose and they're hurt and someone needs to come and get them because I can't,'" she said Thursday from her hospital bed at Providence Alaska Medical Center.

The 44-year-old Hendrickson, a four-time Iditarod finisher, suffered three broken vertebrae and badly bruised legs. Local mushers and volunteers found all 14 of her dogs, with all escaping serious injury.

Though when Hendrickson looks back at the crash, she said, "Nobody should have survived a wreck like that."

On the night of the accident, she returned home from her office in Wasilla where she works for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and immediately hooked up her dog team. The temperature hovered in the mid-20s and snow fell in spurts near her home, about 20 miles north of Willow.

READ MORE: Out for the year, injured Iditarod musher recounts head-on crash

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