Highway workers find woman trapped down snowy embankment after crash, CA officials say

A terrifying crash left a woman dangling upside down inside her wrecked SUV for seven hours after it slid 130 feet down a highway embankment, California officials reported.

The Ukiah woman and her four dogs crashed on Highway 32 near Susanville at 11:30 p.m. Nov. 2, the California Department of Transportation said in a news release on Nov. 10.

Her vehicle wound up on its side against a tree down the snowy embankment.

Two Caltrans workers plowing snow on the highway spotted the crash at 4 a.m., the release said. When they shined a light on her vehicle, the woman began honking her horn.

Workers Vic Baccala and Chuck Braswell called 911, and firefighters were able to rescue the woman with three of her dogs, Caltrans said. She was hospitalized with major injuries.

When fellow Caltrans worker Shannon Kenyon heard the next day that one dog remained missing, he began making daily visits to the crash site to look for it, according to the release.

After two fruitless days of searching, Kenyon began to lose hope of finding the dog.

“Please Lord let me find that poor dog because if he’s not found tonight, he’s probably not going to make it,” Kenyon said when he returned to the site Saturday, Nov. 5, according to the release.

“I walked over to the edge and I yelled ‘Macho!’” he said. “I walked to where I could see down the hill and I saw something red move.”

Knowing the dog had last been seen wearing a red collar, Kenyon grabbed his gloves and headed down the embankment, where he discovered the injured and frightened dog, officials said.

“I just remember saying to him, ‘You’re going to have to trust me. You have to trust me. You have to get out of here, you can’t stay here,’” Kenyon said.

The dog let Kenyon pick it up and he carried it back to his vehicle, then took it home for the evening before reuniting the dog with its owners, the release said.

Susanville is a city of 16,000 people about 110 miles east of Redding.

This story was originally published November 13, 2022 at 3:03 PM with the headline "Highway workers find woman trapped down snowy embankment after crash, CA officials say."