Woman survives 7 days after 200-foot cliff crash on California's rocky coast

(Image credit: CNN/Screenshot)

published 15 July 2018

An Oregon woman named Andrea Hernandez, 23, survived for a full week after her SUV crashed over a 200-foot cliff on California's rocky coast.

Hernandez was driving to visit her sister when she went missing near Big Sur. Her family filed a missing person report, but she was ultimately discovered by hikers who happened to be in the area. Hernandez suffered a concussion and a shoulder injury, but authorities said she was able to walk and talk when they found her.

While awaiting rescue, she used her car's radiator hose to collect water from a stream to stay alive. Hernandez was hospitalized after discovery.

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"We just want to thank everybody ... that helped," said her sister, Isabel Hernandez. "It's day seven, and you guys helped us through the whole thing."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.