A woman in California was able to survive four freezing nights in her totaled truck after the vehicle plunged more than 250 feet into a canyon.
The unidentified woman spent five days and four nights inside the wrecked Ford Ranger after she lost control of the vehicle while swerving to avoid a deer on Mount Baldy Road in San Bernardino on Jan. 3.
She was unable to seek help due to the thick brush and treacherous landscape of Angeles National Park — and apparently survived off supplies she had inside her truck, including some blankets to keep her warm as temperatures fell below freezing.
The woman was eventually found on Sunday by Chris Ayres, who was hiking in the Angeles National Forest when he heard the driver calling for help.
“There was an aircraft flying way up high and I think she was desperately trying to wave her hands or something and she yelled, yelling for help, and that’s when I heard her,” Ayres told ABC 7.
“She yelled again for help and I said, ‘Hello, are you there?’ And she said, ‘Yes, can you please call 911, I’ve been here for days.’ And I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
Ayres said he found the woman visibly injured, but alert.
“She didn’t think she was going to make it another night.
“She said she was preparing her bed for that night. She just said she didn’t think she was going to make it.”
Ayres said he tried to call 911 twice, but had poor cell phone reception, so he ran back to Mount Baldy Road and flagged down a US Forest Service truck.
Engine Capt. Matt Brossard was inside the vehicle, and said his team was responding to another incident nearby when they noticed him.
Ayres then led them to where the woman was trapped inside her wrecked Ford Ranger.
“She was pinned to the driver’s seat,” Brossard told the San Francisco Gate.
“I don’t know how she survived it,” Ayres added. “I saw the steering wheel was almost folded like a taco. Her head must have hit that.”
Working together, firefighters, California Highway Patrol officers and deputies with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department were able to extradite the woman through the windshield.
She was then airlifted to a nearby hospital.
It is believed she had a broken ankle, and Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Dondanville speculated to NBC Los Angeles she may have suffered from hypothermia, dehydration and malnourishment.
“She’s pretty lucky,” Fire Department Captain Ian Thrall told CBS News, claiming that “most of the time [drivers] don’t survive because it’s pretty steep terrain.”
“It’s been very cold up there and it’s been rainy,” he added. “Temperatures have been in the 30s at night.”
Considering “no one saw her go over the side” and there was “no evidence of tire tracks or anything on the road or on the side of the road… she was very lucky [Ayres] happened to come by and hear her.”
Authorities say accidents are common on the winding road into the mountains above Los Angeles.
“But her surviving it, not only just the accident, but also the elements is a New Year’s miracle.”