18-year-old dies in tubing accident with friends, Utah family says. ‘Just heartbroken’

A snow-tubing crash that killed an 18-year-old girl has left her family and friends in central Utah “heartbroken,” news reports say.

Kirsten Beagley of Castle Dale died Saturday, Jan. 20, in an accident while sledding, her obituary said.

Beagley’s tube hit a bump on a sledding hill in Huntington Canyon, spilling her onto an asphalt roadway and fatally injuring her, a GoFundMe established to pay for her funeral said.

She had taken a trip to the snow with friends before planning to attend their high school’s winter formal dance this weekend, according to the GoFundMe.

“It’s heart-wrenching,” dad Kyle Beagley told KSL. “Nothing prepares you for something like this.”

“I think the word is just heartbroken,” mom Janell Beagley told the station. “That’s what I’ve heard a lot of people say that their hearts are broken, and that’s, that’s what we feel right now.”

A senior at Emery High School, Kirsten Beagley served as captain of the school’s drill team, KUTV reported.

“Kirsten will be so missed, to know her was to love her,” the team wrote in a tribute on Instagram. “We all feel so privileged to have been a part of her life and to get to see and know her in the way we have.”

The team called her their “big sister” and “Daddy Krissy” in the tribute.

She also was part of the school’s student council and golf team, according to her obituary.

“Huge loss of a beautiful, smart, capable young woman,” Emery County Sheriff Tyson Huntington, who knew her, told KSL, saying she had a “bright future.”

Castle Dale is about 150 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.

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