Driver Cheers On Her Rescuers : Accidents: Woman is freed from crushed car under truck on freeway in Westminster. Device to cut metal also helps extricate 2 others in separate crash.

A woman trapped in her car as it lay crushed beneath a big rig cheered on her rescuers Tuesday as they sawed through metal to free her.

“Even as they were removing her, she was cheering and saying, ‘All right! Thank you!’ ” said CHP spokeswoman Officer Joan Rivas. “She seemed to be pretty much OK. . . . She’s very lucky.”

The accident occurred about 3 p.m. on the San Diego Freeway when Denise Ferreira, 35, of Los Angeles slowed suddenly because of slowing traffic ahead, and her Toyota Corolla swerved into the front wheel of an empty car-transport truck. The truck driver, Keith Parrish, 38, of Hawthorne, tried to steer free of the wedged car. But the tangled vehicles skidded to the shoulder, with the car wedged upside down beneath the truck.

Ferreira said she “couldn’t move my left leg because of the steering wheel.”

All lanes of the northbound freeway near Golden West Street were closed to allow a rescue helicopter to land, while rescuers worked nearly an hour to free Ferreira.

Ferreira was airlifted to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana with minor injuries and was listed in good condition.

“It was a miracle. Everybody’s telling me that,” Ferreira said from her hospital room.

Ferreira, a housekeeping supervisor at a Beverly Hills hotel, praised her rescuers, who calmed her by asking her questions about herself.

“They are so fine. They are so helpful,” she said later from the hospital. “I’m glad I’m alive and can see my daughters again.”

The accident was one of two crashes on Orange County freeways Tuesday afternoon that required rescuers to use “Jaws of Life” equipment to free trapped victims.

Two other women were hospitalized when their car swerved out of control and careened off the Garden Grove Freeway shortly before 1 p.m., police said. The eastbound compact car went airborne and struck a tree west of Magnolia Avenue, Rivas said.

The driver, Judy Martinez, 52, of Huntington Beach, was in serious condition at UCI Medical Center in Orange. The passenger, Virginia Sprehe, 69, of Westminster, was listed in fair condition at UCI Medical Center with chest trauma and arms injuries. Martinez told investigators she was giving Sprehe a ride when she lost control, but she did not remember what happened, Rivas said.