Teen Walks Out of Woods 2 Days After Plane Crash

She was found on Washington state road
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 14, 2015 1:55 AM CDT
Teen Walks Out of Woods 2 Days After Plane Crash
David Veatch, father of Autumn Veatch, 16, talks to the media at the Civil Air Patrol station at Bellingham International Airport in Bellingham, Wash.   (Philip A. Dwyer/The Bellingham Herald via AP)

A 16-year-old girl in Washington state is bruised and dehydrated but very much alive after surviving a plane crash and a long trek through what authorities describe as some of the state's most rugged terrain. Autumn Veatch was on a small plane with her step-grandparents that crashed after departing Kalispell, Mont., on Saturday afternoon, the Bellingham Herald reports. There was no sign of the plane or its occupants until a motorist found Veatch on State Route 20 yesterday afternoon and took her to a general store, where employees called authorities, the AP reports. She was hospitalized with minor injuries.

Her father tells the Herald that after the plane crashed into a mountain, it caught fire and she was unable to get her step-grandparents out. She spent about a day near the plane waiting for rescue before following a stream and then a trail out of the woods, her father says. Friends say both father and daughter are completely overwhelmed. "She did joke that it was a good thing she'd watched all those Survivor shows that she didn't like, but her dad made her watch anyway," a family friend tells the Seattle Times. Authorities are still searching for the missing Beech A-35. (In Colombia last month, a mother and baby survived four days in the jungle after a plane crash.)

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