A man is recovering but still alive after he crashed his car down an embankment in Lower Merion and was trapped inside a creek for ten hours.
The unidentified man was driving his Chevy Aveo along Greys Lane and Mill Creek Road around 7 p.m. Monday when he somehow lost control of his vehicle and went off the road. The vehicle went down an embankment before crashing into a creek.
The man remained trapped inside his vehicle as the creek was submerged with water. Finally at 4:23 a.m., over nine hours later, a police officer who was patrolling the area heard the man’s cries for help. The officer alerted rescue crews who spent more than an hour getting the man out.
“Our rescue companies took the doors off and the roof off to get to him and then the front of the car was kind of rolled on his feet and legs,” said Merion Fire Company Chief Tom Hayden. “So we had to take the dashboard and the steering column.”
Finally the driver was freed from the vehicle and taken out on a backboard with a neck brace on.
“If he lost his car in there at 7 p.m. and nobody saw him until that police officer heard him, if that police officer wasn’t coming by I’m sure he could’ve been in there for another day until somebody saw him,” Hayden said.
The driver is expected to make a full recovery.
