A man survived after his car fell 200 feet off a cliff on the Sonoma County coast on Sunday. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office helicopter unit found and rescued him after a 55-minute search, according to a social media post by the agency.
The post said the man’s Ford vehicle automatically notified police of the crash around 8 a.m. on Sunday. Using GPS coordinates, police found that the crash happened along Highway 1 near Jewell Gulch, about an hour northwest of Santa Rosa.
A California State Parks ranger saw the vehicle 200 feet off the road, stopped by a tree from falling further down the cliff. A helicopter arrived, and personnel were lowered to the vehicle by rope.
The driver wasn’t inside the wreckage. A helicopter crew member, hanging from the rope, searched nearby ravines and found the driver lying in some brush at the bottom of a tree about 350 feet from the crash site.
The driver was alive and conscious but badly injured. He was secured in a rescue device and flown to another helicopter from the Sonoma County Fire District. This helicopter took him to a local trauma hospital, where he is expected to survive his injuries.