CORONA: Two vehicles off I-15 in Flood Channel - 2 survivors

Woman Crawls to Safety with 2 Broken Legs

KTLA News - link

CORONA -- With raging water just inches away, a 26-year-old woman managed to pull her bruised and broken body out of her truck, which had careened into a fast-moving flood channel.

The woman's car and one other veered off the southbound 15 Freeway after the drivers lost control during the Monday morning rain. Authorities said the first vehicle, a black pickup truck, landed upside down in the flood channel, but the driver was able to escape unharmed.

Moments later, a second vehicle -- the white pickup truck belonging to the injured woman -- also ended up in the flood channel after hydroplaning off the 15 between Magnolia and Ontario and rolling several times.

The woman and her truck were carried away by the current. Eventually, she was separated from her vehicle, and each rode the channel for about 1,000 feet, according to Corona Fire Battalion Capt. Mike Samuels.

The woman passed underneath the 15 in a tunnel and ended up on an embankment just east of the freeway. She was caught in some debris, but managed to free herself.

Both legs broken, the woman then crawled across a muddy field to a house where a homeowner called the paramedics.

The woman was transported to Inland Valley Medical Center in Murrieta, where she was hospitalized with two broken legs.

Firefighters say it was a miracle she and the other driver survived.

"I saw the vehicles. The channel's full. It's flowing about 40 miles an hour. I don't think there's anything we could have done for them had they got stuck in the vehicles," Samuels said.