Aug. 29, 2001 — One person died and three others hung on for hours while police searched the wrong stretch of mountain road for their wrecked car, apparently misdirected by the disoriented driver’s frantic 911 call from his cell phone, police said.
The car tumbled 200 feet into a swamp off a highway by the Hudson River in Bear Mountain Park, N.Y. It crashed through rocks and trees, ejecting one passenger before landing in a wooded area off Route 9W, about 50 miles north of New York City.
The man who was thrown from the white passenger car died of his injuries, police said. Like the other crash victims, he was only identified as a man in his 20s.
Police said they received the first 911 call around 1 a.m., but the man misidentified his location, saying he was near the Rockland County border, several miles away.
Crash Victim Climbed Back Up to Highway
An all-night foot and air search by police of that area during the night turned up no sign of the vehicle, but eventually one of the passengers freed himself from the wreckage and climbed up to the road.
Bruised, ragged and disoriented, he flagged down a passing truck, whose driver called 911.
The off-road search-and-rescue mission ended at 7 a.m., when police found the crumpled vehicle.
The driver and passengers were described as being either unconscious or semi-conscious when police reached them.
One victim was taken to nearby Nyack Hospital, while two others were rushed by helicopters to other facilities. Details on their conditions were n
ot available.
