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Two Survive Gnarly 400-Feet Crash Down Embankment In Angeles National Forest
Two people survived a rollover crash on Sunday after they plummeted 400 feet down an embankment in the Angeles National Forest.
Around 10 a.m., La Crescenta Sheriff's deputies spotted the car off the cliff along the Angeles Crest Highway and heard a girl screaming for help, the L.A. County Fire Department told City News Service. Rescue crews responded and found the teenage girl and the crumpled car, which was 400 feet below the highway near the 40-mile marker, KTLA reports. They airlifted her to the hospital. She has non-life-threatening injuries.
The driver was nowhere to be found because he had left the car before rescue crews arrived. Rescue teams and search dogs spent hours scouring the forest looking for him, but called off their search after they weren't able to find him.
It wasn't until Dolores Gillham, a photojournalist for CBS2/KCAL9 who was there at the time taking a selfie, heard a man yelling for help that she spotted the driver, CBS 2 reported. "I heard help and then I heard help again," Gillham said, "and then I went back to our news van and I said Nick you gotta come back with me out here, there’s somebody yelling for help." They alerted authorities about the situation and crews responded around 4 p.m.
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La Crescenta Sheriff's Department identified the man as 20-year-old Daniel Barragan, who was also airlifted to a hospital, NBC Los Angeles reports. He suffered from a broken leg and other non-life-threatening injuries.
It's not clear what caused the crash, though the California Highway Patrol believes that the car veered off the Angeles Crest Highway between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m.
There was another crash along the Angeles Crest Highway near the 44-mile marker on Saturday. Rescue teams found a 23-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman about 20 feet below the highway, according to KPCC. The man suffered minor injuries and the woman had to be airlifted to a hospital because her injuries were moderate.
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