Montrose Search and Rescue – Four Days in a Crashed Car

Often the tales of survival by accident victims are as fascinating as the stories of their rescues. In 1984 a young woman miraculously survived for nearly four days after crashing her car. She was within earshot of the Angeles Crest Highway, and was only discovered by accident.

On the evening of Oct. 25, 1984, Lori had a nasty fight with her husband at their home in Eagle Rock. Lori, who was barefoot at the time, angrily left the house and jumped in her mini-pickup for a drive up the dark Angeles Crest Highway. She had only gone a couple of miles, just past the ranger station, when her truck went over the side. Lori stated later that she lost control of the truck because of bald tires, but the CHP investigation showed she was probably in the process of turning around and accidently backed off the side of the turnoff. The truck tumbled and slid about 150 feet down the steep mountainside before finally coming to rest upside down, wedged in heavy brush. Lori had hurt her back and banged her head but was conscious. It was pitch dark and cold, about 40 degrees and, as far as Lori knew, no one knew where she had gone, and no one saw her go off the edge.

Lori’s mind went into survival mode. She was barefoot, and would never get out of there without shoes. Like many people, she had a lot of junk in her car. In the dark, she found a roll of electrical tape. She tore off sections of her seat cover and fashioned a pair of makeshift shoes.

When reading these rescue stories, one must keep in mind the extreme nature of the terrain in our mountains. The slope her truck rested on was nearly vertical, and made up of shale and rocks that slid downward at the slightest touch. Below the truck was nearly impenetrable brush, growing out of the same slippery material. She tried for several hours to climb back up to the roadway, but every step up just sent her sliding downward. She went back to her truck and gathered some blankets, along with a pencil and paper to keep a diary in case she didn’t get out alive. Now she headed down. Weakened, she quickly became mired in the dense brush. And so she sat trapped for three-and-half days, fully expecting to die, keeping notes in her homemade diary for her family to read after her body was found.

A few days later, the big sheriff rescue chopper was on its way to its base camp at Barley Flats when one of the crewmen spotted an overturned vehicle in the brush below the highway. They set down at a turnout for a routine check. The Crest was a favorite dumping ground for stolen cars, and that’s fully what they expected to find, a stripped hulk. But when they reached the truck after rappelling down the slope, they could make out a weak voice below them calling for help.

Montrose Search and Rescue team rappelled down another 500 feet down through dense brush to Lori, where they found her very weak, but still alert. The team strapped her to a stretcher, and winched her to the top of a nearby ridge. The same helicopter that spotted her truck came in carefully for a tricky one-wheel landing. The big chopper planted one landing gear on the ridgetop, and the team slid her stretcher quickly into the open door.

Lori was treated at Verdugo Hills Hospital where doctors reported that she was elated to have survived. Her diary recorded her extreme hunger and thirst, along with her pain from injuries. She was convinced that she wouldn’t be rescued and that she would die of thirst. The rescue team deemed it a miracle she was found, noting that had the truck slid another 15 feet, it would have been completely engulfed in brush and invisible from above. It was indeed a miracle that she was found, and a miracle that she survived at all.

  mike lawler