Highway worker helps find woman lost in desert for 6 days

Woman’s car had crashed through a fence, landing in a tree

PHOENIX — A woman spent six days in the Arizona desert after her car veered off a highway, surviving crash injuries and being rescued after roadway workers noticed a broken fence, authorities said Wednesday.

The Department of Public Safety said two state transportation workers and a rancher were in Wickenburg, about an hour’s drive from Phoenix, on Oct. 18 when they saw the fence was unusually damaged.

“I said, ‘ … I bet you there’s a car down there’,” Zach Moralez, a highway operations technician, told The Associated Press.

The three saw a mangled car in a mesquite tree and went to check it out. It was empty. Nobody answered their hollering, Moralez said.

A DPS trooper and other members of a maintenance crew showed up and fanned out. Moralez said his brother, the rancher, spotted a footprint.

The group followed the tracks for about 500 yards and found a 53-year-old woman severely dehydrated and with serious injuries in a dry riverbed.

Despite being somewhat lethargic and in pain, she was alert enough to open her eyes and answer questions. Moralez said she was dirty and had facial trauma — likely from the accident. She was airlifted to a hospital about 15 minutes later.

The woman recounted how she was driving on U.S. 60 on Oct. 12 when she lost control of her car, according to the trooper. The vehicle went through the fence and dropped 50 feet, landing in the tree.

She stayed in her car for several days before trying to walk toward some railroad tracks to find help, but was too weak to make it, authorities said.

A DPS spokesman said the woman did not give details about her current condition.