Infant feared dead after family vehicle veers off cliff in Northern California
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Trinity County authorities conducted search and rescue operations for the body of an infant who was swept from his father’s arms after their four-door sedan veered off the highway and into the Trinity River.
The solo-car accident occurred before 2 a.m. Thursday along State Route 299, two miles east of the Big Flat campground, according to Keith Krick, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.
He said a young couple from Shasta Lake were traveling in a 2004 Lexus ES 330 with their 9-month-old infant in the back seat when the vehicle suddenly veered off the road, down an embankment and into the fast-moving river.
Krick said it’s unknown how fast the driver, a 21-year-old woman, was going or what caused her to lose control of the vehicle. He said drugs and alcohol were not a factor in the crash.
He said the woman and her partner, a 19-year-old man, grabbed their infant son from the sinking vehicle and were trying to escape when the current swept the young boy from his father’s arms.
“So at some point, the child was handed from one person to the other and that’s the last time either party remembers seeing the child,” Krick said.
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He said the parents suffered minor to moderate injuries. Krick said the father was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash. CHP declined to name the parents.
A GoFundMe page for the family was set up by Michelle Huskey, who told Northern California’s Action News Now that she was the aunt of the infant. Huskey said the child was named Oliver Evergreen Cox.
Huskey told the news outlet that the family was returning from a beach trip when the car crashed into the river. Oliver’s mother was able to unbuckle the baby but he was swept away into the current after she passed the child to the father, she said.
Krick said the couple and the submerged vehicle were discovered by a California Highway Patrol helicopter but efforts to locate the child were not successful.
Search and rescue teams with the Trinity County Sheriff’s Office continued the search Friday, but as of 12 p.m. they had not been able to locate the young child.
In a “Trinity County Community” Facebook group, people offered their condolences and sent prayers to the family. Others said they thought the accident was a wake-up call that a barrier should be put up alongside the road by the river.
Juan Heredia, a search and recovery diving instructor, said in a video posted on Facebook that he dived into the river and found the car but the current was strong. Because the vehicle had a broken window in the back, he thinks the “baby went with the current.”
“1000% sure that the baby is not inside the car,” he said in the video, standing on a road in front of the river.
Heredia and Huskey didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment via email Saturday morning. The CHP and the Trinity County Sheriff’s Office also didn’t respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
The river — a popular spot for white water rafting around this time of the year — is fast-moving and dangerous. At the time of the crash and location, the water was flowing at 3,480 cubic feet per second, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, which tracks the river’s flow.
Krick said the investigation into the crash is ongoing.
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