Two women escaped death Tuesday when their SUV plunged down a 300-foot embankment and into the Russian River in Mendocino County.
The car, which was driven by a 20-year-old woman from Las Vegas, was going southbound on Highway 101 when the driver lost control of the car and it cartwheeled down a cliff and into the river, according to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. The sedan was mostly submerged in the river, the CHP said.
The women had just enough air and just enough room to get out of the car, the Press Democrat reported. They then swam to shore and crawled up a cliff to get help.
"They were lucky," Hopland Fire Department Chief Mitch Franklin told the Ukiah Daily Journal. Franklin told the paper that the SUV landed upright on a rock in the river, and that the water surrounding the rock "was very deep."