Rescue Gives Gift of Life to Motorist

As paramedics rolled Jolene Donohue into the Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, the 52-year-old Santa Clarita resident had some proud words for her nurse.

“I’ve got good health and I’m tough, too,” she told the hospital worker Friday afternoon, according to her son, John Donohue.

Tough--and a survivor.

Jolene Donohue endured two nights trapped in her crumpled car after it veered off the westbound Foothill Freeway embankment in Sylmar on Wednesday night, rolled over and came to rest on its wheels in rugged terrain 70 feet below, according to authorities.

It was only through a lucky coincidence that Donohue was spotted Friday morning by a motorist.

Donohue remained in serious but stable condition late Saturday, said a nursing supervisor at Providence Holy Cross, where Donohue was surrounded by friends and family as she recovered from surgery to her fractured right ankle.

She couldn’t recall what caused the accident, her son said Saturday.

But John Donohue said his mother had no water or food in the car during the two days.

The car could not be seen by motorists on the nearby freeway and transition roads because it was obscured by hills, authorities said. The car’s bronze color also blended into the brush.

But one person did finally see it.

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John Teslich, 42, said he was on his way to Globe, Ariz., where he had recently moved with his family, when he pulled over about 10 a.m.

Teslich then saw the car, a 1998 Mazda 626 Sedan. Inside, Jolene Donohue lay trapped. The force of the crash had jammed the car doors shut and cut electrical power to the windows.

Teslich said he spent more than an hour trying to flag down a vehicle.

“I got a little bold and waved up and down in the slow lane. Only one 1/8driver 3/8 was decent enough to pull over.”

Teslich said Donohue had cuts to her face, hands and stomach. He took T-shirts and used them as tourniquets to wrap around her cuts, he said.

As he held her hand, she kept repeating she was going to die, Teslich said.

“I kept saying, ‘You’re going to be OK. You’re going to make it for Christmas,’ ” he said.

By 12:20 p.m. Friday, rescue workers had arrived.

“It is a miracle. All we could do is thank God we got our mom back,” said Donohue, also of Santa Clarita. “We thought we lost her.”

Teslich said he used his jacket to cover Donohue because she was cold. He then rushed plastic cups of water from his car’s ice chest to the trapped woman.

“She 1/8told Teslich 3/8 she wanted to get out” to call her boys, John Donohue said.

Donohue, who operates her own industrial welding distribution and supply business, is widowed and has four sons.

Teslich, who had no cell phone, was unable to flag down a vehicle until a UPS driver stopped and called the California Highway Patrol.

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Rescue workers cut through the car’s roof, removed Donohue and placed her in an ambulance.

Teslich then called John Donohue, who received the call Friday on his cell phone while at a Sheriff’s Department station in Santa Clarita filing a second missing person’s report on his mother.

She was last seen at 10 p.m. Wednesday during a housewarming party in La Crescenta.

” 1/8Her 3/8 missing was the worst part,” John Donohue said.

“We were thinking the worst. We were hoping for the best and praying for the best. We were scared she might have been kidnapped and robbed. . . . It’s not like her to not be in touch with us.”

Her sons filed their first missing person’s report late Thursday, John Donohue said.

Now, Jolene Donohue is making jokes from her intensive-care unit bed, John Donohue said.

“She’s concerned about who’s cooking Christmas dinner,” he said.

” 1/8Her recovery 3/8 made it the best Christmas ever. Nothing can ever replace this Christmas.”