AMERICAN FORK CANYON – A woman trapped for two days in a crushed car several hundred feet down the side of a mountain is injured but alive thanks to a man and woman who happened to stop for photographs in American Fork Canyon, Thursday, and heard her cries for help.

Twenty-nine year old Heather Blackwelder, a Utah County resident, had been trapped in her car for two days, according to a statement issued by the Utah County Sheriff’s Office.  She had been traveling down state Route 92 at about mile 14.5 near the Pine Hollow Trailhead parking lot, the statement said, when her car went through a guard rail and down the mountainside several hundred feet.

“The location of the crash made it very unlikely a passerby would have seen the car or heard the woman,” the Sheriff’s Office said. “Her chance of survival would have been very unlikely had the man and woman not been out of their car taking pictures.”

Twenty-year-old Spencer Dryden and his girlfriend had stopped to take pictures at a scenic spot when they heard Blackwelder’s cries for help, according to a report by Brady McCombs for the Associated Press. Dryden traversed down the mountain to find the injured woman while his girlfriend went to call for help.

Sheriff’s  deputies responded around 3:30 p.m. Thursday, along with Utah County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue, Lone Peak Fire Department, and LifeFlight.

“Dryden says Blackwelder’s car was filled with all her belongings,” the Associated Press reported. “She told him she went for a drive Tuesday on the narrow, winding mountain road after a fight with her husband.”

Medical responders stabilized Blackwelder at the scene of the crash and then transported her by Life Flight to Utah Valley Medical Center. Her injuries were numerous, including possible broken bones, the Sheriff’s Office statement said, but none appeared to be life threatening.

Read more about this story at Fox 13 now.

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