Woman clings to tree for 12 hours after car plunges into raging Northern California creek, killing her friend
After a deadly accident, a 19-year-old girl clung to a tree in cold, fast-moving creek for 12 hours then climbed 100 yards up a thorn-covered hillside to a highway where she flagged down a passing motorist during last week’s storms in Northern California, authorities said.
The girl’s childhood friend, 19-year-old Humboldt State University sophomore Jenna Santos, died in the wreck off Highway 101 near Willits on Wednesday night. Santos was driving when her 2004 Toyota Corolla hydroplaned, flipped several times and landed in Outlet Creek in Mendocino County, the California Highway Patrol said.
The creek, which is one of the headwaters of the Eel River and is fed by a dozen tributaries brimming from rain and snow runoff, quickly swallowed the Corolla while the two women tried to escape.
But only Santos’ friend, Natalie Griffin, 19, survived.
On Tuesday, only days removed from the tragic accident, Griffin started her spring semester at Chabot Junior College in Hayward, said her cousin, Monica Keyser. Griffin hopes the schoolwork will bring a sense of normalcy amid the emotional swings she’s endured since the accident, Keyser said.
Sunday was the first time Griffin managed to get a full night of sleep, her cousin said.
“She has really good moments where she’s happy to be home alive. Others are hard moments where she kind of breaks down and it all hits her,” Keyser told The Times on Tuesday.
In the days since the accident, Keyser said, her cousin has gradually opened up about the incident. Here is what Keyser said her cousin recalled:
With the spring school semester only a week away, Santos and Griffin, who were friends since they were 14, decided to head up to Santos’ apartment in Humboldt to see some of the snow.
Though some of their relatives suggested they spend Wednesday night in Humboldt to avoid the weather, the college students decided to make the journey south because Santos had work the next morning.
It was dark, cold and drizzly when Santos’ Corolla lost control south of Underpass Road on Highway 101, rolled several times and landed right side up in the creek. The car wasn’t visible from the road, which was about a football field distance away, the CHP said.
“Once it landed on the wheels, [Griffin] thought they were driving again because it was going so quickly,” Keyser said. “It turns out it was the current.”
The car moved until it became lodged against a tree — Griffin’s life raft.
Santos and Griffin tried to kick out the front windshield, which was smashed, but that only allowed water to flow in faster, Keyser said. Griffin looked to the rear of the car and saw the rear window had been broken out during the crash, Keyser said.
“They were already up to their necks in water. [Griffin] said ‘look we can get out this way,’ and Jenna said ‘OK,’” Keyser said.
But when Griffin looked back, she saw her friend was stuck in the car somehow. Griffin rose to the surface as the waters swallowed the car, but Santos never emerged.
Wearing only socks, one shoe, yoga pants, a turtle neck and light jacket, Griffin climbed the tree and clung to a branch no thicker than a person’s leg.
It was drizzling and cold as Griffin held onto the tree. Winds gusted up to 26 mph the day of the crash, the National Weather Service said. Temperatures dropped to 42 degrees by 5:30 a.m. Thursday, by which time Griffith had spent about 10 hours in the creek.
Griffin hallucinated that Santos was with her in the tree throughout the night and that the two talked about how they were going to make it, Keyser said. She kept warm by tucking her legs and head into her jacket and exhaling, creating a little pocket of warm air, she said.
“She wanted people to know that in the worst situations, if you stay present and aware and find the good, you can make it,” Keyser said. “The reason she’s alive is because she stayed calm even in a horrific nightmare.”
Keyser said that Griffin stayed in the tree until after the waters receded a bit at sunrise. She swam to the shore then crawled through brush and thorny berry bushes up to highway, where she flagged down a passing motorist, the CHP said.
Her first call was to her mother, who along with Santos’ family had been looking for the women since the previous day.
A GoFundMe account has been set up to help Santos’ family with funeral expenses. She was an only child, Keyser said.
At least four other people have died in weather-related incidents in California in the last two weeks.
For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.
ALSO
Skinned zebra found dead on beach near Hearst Castle
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
