A 24-year-old woman in a Ford Taurus drove off the edge of Bean Creek Road in Scotts Valley and tumbled down an embankment more than 100 feet to the forest floor Wednesday afternoon, March 17, sustaining only minor injuries.
The woman was airlifted to Stanford Hospital with neck and back pain.
The single-car accident took place on rural Bean Creek Road about a quarter-mile below the intersection of Glenwood Drive.
Scotts Valley firefighters extracted the woman from the car and used a Z-rig pulley system to pull her back up to the roadway while she was strapped into a stretcher.
The fire crews used nearly the entire 200-foot length of rope to set up the pulley system down the steep hillside.
The Z-rig system is something firefighters practice in training.
“You see them a lot more on the highway,” Scotts Valley firefighter Mike Pasquini said. “It’s been used a ton.”
At the scene, a neighbor said, the woman was talking and moving her limbs and appeared to have no serious injuries after her car rolled down the steep hillside.
“I heard it seven times: crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch — seven times, and then it stopped,” Bean Creek Road resident Matt Ambler said.
Ambler had been working in his shop when the car crashed, and he quickly ran down the hill to help.
“She had seat belt burns all over her,” Ambler said. “She’s lucky.”
Bean Creek Road was blocked for more than an hour while two fire crews and California Highway Patrol officers were on scene.
There was no indication that alcohol contributed to the accident.
