Ojai Woman Found After Crash Ordeal : Rescue: Alice Maynard falls asleep at wheel, spends 30 hours in creek bed after her car plunges off freeway.

Buzzards circling overhead helped lead rescuers to a 59-year-old Ojai woman, who lay for about 30 hours in a creek bed after her Mercedes-Benz plunged off the freeway in Santa Barbara County, just south of Buellton.

Alice Maynard was found semi-conscious lying face down in the creek bed when Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies arrived Tuesday morning. She had managed to squeeze out of her wrecked car, crawl through a culvert under U.S. 101, and shuffle 100 yards up the creek bed before collapsing in exhaustion. She lay there for a day and night before she was rescued.

“She was extremely lucky to be found alive,” said California Highway Patrol Officer Jim Everly. “Her car was totaled.”

Maynard suffered a serious head wound, four broken ribs, a broken left arm, numerous bruises and hypothermia. She underwent surgery and spent two days at the hospital before being moved to her parents’ home in Santa Maria, where she is recovering.

In a telephone interview Friday, the retired accounting manager described her ordeal, which began early Monday after she set out from Ojai to visit her parents.

She left about 3:10 a.m. because she wanted to arrive in Santa Maria around 5:30 that morning to accompany her father to the hospital for some tests, Maynard said. Maynard works as a volunteer at Ojai Valley Hospital.

“I fell asleep at the wheel, and I woke up when I was airborne,” Maynard said. “I went from the northbound lane to the southbound lane and over the guard rail and into the (Santa Ynez) River.”

CHP officials estimate that Maynard’s car was traveling at least 60 m.p.h. when she hit the guard rail about 4 a.m. Monday. Her car tumbled 40 feet down an embankment in the undeveloped rolling hills just south of Buellton.

“I remember the car rolling over several times,” Maynard said. “I don’t remember the bruising or the breaking of bones. It was still dark, so I stayed in the car until daylight because I thought someone could see the car from the freeway in daylight.”

Several hours later, when it was daylight, Maynard realized that her car could not be easily spotted from the freeway and she decided to get out and find help.

“It was a big accomplishment getting out from under the seat belt without unlatching it because I couldn’t find the release button,” Maynard recalled. “And the hardest thing was trying to walk.”

Maynard hit her head in the crash and the bad blow made her disoriented and dizzy, she said. She said she grew tired of falling down whenever she tried to walk, so she began crawling.

On hands and knees, Maynard traveled through a culvert under the freeway and about 100 yards up a creek before she was overcome by exhaustion. Every now and then, she would yell to passing vehicles for help.

“I had been screaming at truck drivers that went by, but no one could hear me,” Maynard said. “Finally I just got too tired and saw that I was going to have to lay there until someone found me. It was very cold, and it got very dark at night.”

Maynard spent all of Monday waiting for rescuers to discover her. Temperatures for Buellton were not available, but National Weather Service officials said temperatures dropped to 50 degrees in Santa Barbara on Monday night. Authorities said waiting in the cold creek water helped stop the bleeding from the cuts she received and kept her lacerations clean.

She was found Tuesday morning after a passing bicyclist noticed her mangled car and reported it to the CHP. By then, her parents, Cliff and Flo Doolittle, had already filed a missing persons report with the Santa Maria Police Department.

Rescue teams initially looked near Maynard’s car, said Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Deputy Mark Hamane.

“We thought maybe she was in a daze and walked, so we walked onto the other side of the freeway,” Hamane said. “We just happened to see the buzzards (soaring) near the creek, and when we checked the creek area, that’s where we found her.”

Maynard said she did not remember rescue teams discovering her. Hamane said the woman was face down in a few inches of water and disoriented.

“She looked wrinkled from the water, but she was in pretty good condition compared to what the car looked like,” Hamane said.

Maynard was taken to Santa Ynez Valley Hospital, where she underwent surgery. She said she will probably stay with her parents for at least another week to recover from the accident.

“She is a lucky woman,” her father said.