SUV Veers Off Cliff, Teens Saved: No Fatalities After 100-Foot Drop

Three Arizona teens are lucky to be alive after miraculously surviving a 100-foot fall down a cliff in the SUV a friend was driving, KPHO is reporting.

The Flagstaff teens were driving through a remote area when the driver took a curve too fast and plunged 100 feet down a cliff in a remote area. Passenger Danielle Goldberg describes what happened.

“I just remember we had gone really fast around this corner and the car started to lean over, and we all kind of had that moment of, ‘Oh crap, this is going to happen,’ and then the car just started rolling.”

The other passenger, identified as Viven Cantrell, shared her memory of the fall.

“I just grabbed onto the window and was trying to hold on for dear life. I remember rolling once, (tires) squealing a little bit, and then at the bottom I was just suspended by my seat belt.”

The two passengers suffered only minor injuries.

The SUV’s driver, identified only as “Holly,” suffered more serious injuries but is expected so survive. She somehow managed to survive being ejected from the tumbling SUV and then having it land on top of her, according to InForum. Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Dwight D’Evelyn explains how the teen defied one-in-a-million odds to survive the crash.

“It appeared her body occupied part of this space thus avoiding the full weight of the car.”

Rescuers worked for over four hours to extricate the teen from her predicament. She was then airlifted to Flagstaff Medical Center, where she’s listed in good condition.

In fact, when rescuers arrived on the scene of the accident, they were surprised that anyone could have survived it. Pine-Strawberry Fire District Capt. Paul Voakes described how he and his team felt when they saw the mangled SUV at the bottom of a cliff, 100 feet below them.

“Once we got there and looked down there, it’s like, yeah, it’s going to be bad.”

When the hysterical teen crawled out from under the SUV, rescuers were amazed at how little damage she’d suffered.

“She got up and looked around, and she actually said, ‘I’m sorry.’ At that point, everyone was pretty much quiet because we couldn’t believe the extraordinary condition that she was actually in. A few of the firefighters got emotional and broke down at that point.”

The teens reported that they had spent Wednesday afternoon swimming and were rushing to make it home in time for curfew when their SUV rolled down the cliff.

[Image courtesy of: KPHO]