An Arizona man is recuperating from severe injuries after an accident in which his vehicle dove off a cliff and plummeted 200 feet early Sunday morning, the event and subsequent rescue operation were captured on video. The incident occurred near the east Mesa off State Route 88, a treacherous stretch that has been the site for multiple vehicular accidents, this area known by locals as the "graveyard" and where roughly 10 smashed cars lay in repose, as reported by FOX 10 Phoenix.
According to an interview with Jessica Heavin, an EMT with American Medical Response (AMR), conducted by FOX 10 Phoenix, she emphasized the importance of keeping the injured driver alert saying, "I wanted to make sure he was still alert, and he could answer my questions and make sure that he knew nobody had left him. We were all still there and that we were coming." The rescue, necessitating a collaborative effort of various emergency units including Arizona DPS, AMR, Mesa Fire, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, an air evac chopper, and the Superstition Fire & Medical Technical Rescue Team, involved tactics such as rappelling rescuers down the cliff and utilizing a helicopter to safely extricate the victim.
FOX 10 Phoenix describes the harrowing descent by rescue teams into the darkness to render aid to the driver, documenting paramedic Sophie Boukatch's statement, "It’s obviously a little nerve-racking going down a dark cliff." Meanwhile, azfamily.com reports detailed accounts by the first responders, notably that the driver, though he had sustained severe injuries to his lower limbs was conscious during the ordeal, this fact alone heightened the immediacy of the rescue operation, ensuring the driver's safe retrieval was of the utmost priority.
Paramedic Barbara Foord recounted how it was bystanders who witnessed the incident that led to the man's rescue, stating to azfamily.com, "He was very lucky. Early in the morning we don’t have a lot of traffic that way,” Foord said. “Unless somebody was hiking in that area, we would have never have known he was there," their timely call facilitated the multi-agency rescue which took approximately five hours from the initial distress call to the patient being airlifted to a hospital for medical treatment. The precise motive behind the driver's veer off the road remains undetermined, and the extent of his recovery is not yet clear.
