A desperate driver with a broken leg was rescued Wednesday after he was trapped in his wrecked car for two days in a freezing, snowy area near Mount Baldy, authorities said.
Firefighters had a tough time bringing the man up the side of a cliff to a waiting helicopter in the darkness before dawn. The victim had been unable to get out of his vehicle’s wreckage after driving off the side of a road and careening down about 75 feet.
After a weekend snowstorm, temperatures at Mount Baldy were in the mid-20s during the day and mid-teens during overnight hours during the past few days.
The California Highway Patrol called the Los Angeles County Fire Department about 2:55 a.m. about a vehicle that appeared to have fallen off the road below Mount Baldy Road near the Barrett Stoddard Truck Trail.
The man inside the vehicle was found alive but with a broken leg, said county fire Dispatch Supervisor Michael Pittman.
The man was carried up the mountain and transported by helicopter to a hospital. His condition was not immediately reported. There was no word of the cause of the incident, nor if the victim suffered any weather-related injuries.
—City News Service