Plane Crash Survivor Dies After Her Rescue From Icy Mountain : Tragedy: Injured woman spent 12 hours in freezing weather while her husband and father sought help. Her two children and mother apparently were killed on impact.

An Upland woman whose two children and mother were killed in a weekend plane crash near Mammoth Mountain survived 12 hours alone and severely injured in near-zero temperatures, only to die in a hospital Monday after rescuers had fought their way through a blizzard to reach her.

“She was still alive when we got her down,” said Joe Rousek, one of the first rescuers to reach the woman. “She was awfully cold, and she didn’t know what was happening, but I really thought she’d make it. It’s sad. Really sad.”

Shelly Hills, 32, died at Centinela-Mammoth Hospital in Mammoth Lakes of hypothermia, complicated by burns and other injuries suffered in the crash.

Still buried in the wreckage atop 11,472-foot Red Mountain were the bodies of her children, ages 4 and 2, whose names were not immediately available, and her mother, Nadine Gearhart, 52, also of Upland. Mono County sheriff’s deputies said all three apparently died on impact.

Two crash survivors remained in the hospital Monday. Shelly Hills’ husband, Keith Hills, 25, was in serious condition. Her father, Frank Gearhart, 52, the pilot, was in stable condition.

Mono County Undersheriff Richard Jacobsen said the six family members had taken off from Mammoth Lakes Airport shortly before 7 p.m. Saturday in Gearhart’s twin-engine Cessna 421.

A few minutes later, as a snowstorm began to close in, the plane slammed into the mountain about 10 miles southeast of the airport.

Officials said the three survivors apparently spent the night near the plane, huddled around the burning wreckage, before starting down the mountain early Sunday. Deputies said that when Shelly Hills was unable to continue, the two men decided to leave her and get help.

Rousek, 37, said he was at his house near the base of the mountain about nine hours later when he saw the men staggering though the snow.

“They were really tired, beat up, blood on their faces,” Rousek said. “The younger guy was having a hard time breathing, couldn’t really talk. The older guy said his daughter was still up there.”

Rousek, an experienced mountaineer, said he called 911 and started up the mountain, following the tracks left by the men. Not far behind him came three volunteer search-and-rescue teams.

“It’s steep country,” Rousek said. “It was dark, cold--maybe 10 above--and there was a blizzard. There were times they’d walked in circles, and the snow was filling in the tracks.”

After an hour, the first rescue team--Pete Kirchner and Vilis Ozolins--caught up with Rousek, and two hours later, around 8 p.m. Sunday, the men reached the 10,000-foot level.

“That’s where we found her, lying on her back in the snow,” Rousek said. “She was incoherent. Her clothing--a cotton sweat suit and a small jacket--were all wet.”

Rousek and Kirchner said they wrapped the woman in a down jacket, and when other teams arrived with more gear they put her in a sleeping bag with hot-water bottles. Doctors radioed advice.

Litters were brought in and the woman was carried through the blizzard to the hospital. But it was too late.

“They did everything that could be done,” said Greg Enright, coordinator of the rescue effort. “It’s just too bad it wasn’t enough.”

Federal investigators will seek to determine the cause of the crash.