VANCOUVER -- Mounties in B.C.'s Kootenay region say a woman is lucky a local man heard her calling for help after she spent a night pinned under her car 15 feet down a roadside embankment earlier this week.
The woman ran out of gas on Davidson Road, a few kilometres west of Ainsworth, B.C., around 8 p.m. on Sunday, June 21, according to a news release from Kaslo RCMP.
Police say she tried to push her grey Kia Forte off the roadway, but lost control of the vehicle and became trapped underneath it.
Officers were called to the scene the following morning, when an area resident was outside with his dog and heard the woman calling for help.
When they arrived, police found the woman's vehicle resting against trees 15 feet down the embankment on the side of the road.
Fire and search and rescue crews were called in to help safely extricate the woman, who was taken to hospital nearby and later airlifted to a regional hospital because of the severity of her injuries, police said.
Though serious, the woman's injuries are not believed to be life-threatening, something police attribute to the fact that the man heard her cries for help.
"RCMP wish to commend the resident for responding to the victim's cries for assistance," said Cpl. Jesse O'Donaghey, spokesperson for the B.C. RCMP's Southeast District, in the release. "Doing so likely saved the woman's life."
