Woman Pulled From Ditch After Crash

A 66-year-old woman who lost control of her car and landed upside-down in a water-filled drainage ditch was rescued Wednesday by a man who heard the crash and pulled her from the wreckage, authorities said.

Jeannette Pelletier of Oxnard was shaken up but not injured during the 12:30 p.m. incident on Highway 1, about a mile south of Channel Islands Boulevard, authorities said.

“She said she couldn’t breathe and said she thought she was going to drown,” said California Highway Patrol Officer George Orozco.

Pelletier was driving north in her 1989 Nissan sedan when she drifted onto the shoulder, over-corrected and then flipped into the ditch, Orozco said.

When the vehicle came to rest, Pelletier was dangling upside down in her seat belt and her head was submerged in water, Orozco said.

Oxnard resident Jorge Chavez, 44, who was doing some repair work on his sister’s home nearby, heard tires skidding and saw dust. Orozco said Chavez scaled a block wall and found the car in the ditch.

“He took a Swiss Army knife and cut her out of the seat belt and pulled her out and then he carried her out of the ditch,” the officer said. “The officer who arrived on scene thought it was pretty heroic.”