A Tesla veered off the road Monday on Northern California’s treacherous Devil’s Slide promontory, falling 250 feet off a cliff to the rocks below.
The four occupants of the vehicle — two adults, a 4-year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy — survived.
“This afternoon, San Mateo County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a vehicle over the side of [Highway 1] south of the Tom Lantos tunnel. … Two adults suffered nonlife-threatening injuries and two children were unharmed,” the sheriff’s office wrote in a Facebook post.
Neither the Tesla’s autopilot system nor weather was believed to be a factor in the crash; there was no guardrail along the stretch of road where the accident occurred.
Witnesses alerted authorities to the crash at about 10:15 a.m., and responding crews set up ropes to lower firefighters down to the scene.
“As I’m driving by, I’m like, ’Wow, he’s driving extremely fast to take that exit. You’re not even supposed to be going up that way. And I can see in my rearview mirror this car that just goes over the edge and straight down,” witness Robin Johnson told KNTV, a Bay Area NBC affiliate.
Other firefighters with binoculars noticed movement in the vehicle, letting them know at least one passenger survived.
“Damage to the vehicle would indicate that it hit and then flipped several times. It landed mostly on its wheels. … We were able to notice movement in the front seat through the windshield with binoculars,” Cal Fire San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit Battalion Chief Brian Pottenger noted in an agency video posted on Twitter.
The doors had been smashed shut, necessitating the use of the “jaws of life” to help the four passengers out of the Tesla. Authorities indicated their survival was unbelievable.
“We go there all the time for cars over the cliff and they never live. This was an absolute miracle,” Mr. Pottenger told The Associated Press.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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