California Woman Rescued After Plunging Off Highway


A missing California woman who tumbled 300 feet down an embankment and spent a night trapped in her car in freezing temperatures was pulled to safety Monday by rescue workers who tracked her location through her cell phone.

Tracy Granger, 56, from Juniper Hills, Calif., was reported missing over the weekend after she was last seen leaving Pasadena around 6:30 p.m. Saturday in her 1994 Ford Ranger pickup truck.  Granger had set off to drive through the mountainous roads of Angeles National Forest to the town of Littlerock, according to local affiliate KABC.

When Granger was still not home more than 24 hours later on Sunday, her husband reported her missing around midnight.

With Granger not answering her cell phone, authorities used location data provided by her carrier, AT&T, to track her.  The data indicated she had taken an alternative route through the mountains.

Once authorities focused their search on the new location, KABC reports, they spotted tracks left by her tire and then the truck itself, crashed 300 feet down an embankment off the Angeles Forest Highway and buried in snow.

Authorities found Granger outside of the vehicle, having been ejected or managing to escape through the driver's side window, semiconscious and barely able to speak.

"The car, you could tell, was pretty demolished. It had done several flips and rolls, and the roof was smashed most of the way in," Mark Desmarteau, a paramedic with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, told KABC.

Granger was wearing only a sweatshirt and mittens over her clothes in temperatures that dipped to 34 degrees overnight, authorities said.

In a dramatic rescue that was caught on tape, workers used a helicopter to pull Granger to safety off the cliff.   She was transported to the Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena where she remained, as of Monday, in critical but stable condition.

Authorities have not said what caused Granger's truck to crash but there were reports of heavy rain in the area on Sunday.