Miracle escape

By EMMA SUN
A TEENAGER was lucky to escape unscathed after her car plummeted 15 metres down an embankment in Kalorama last Wednesday evening.
Nineteen-year-old Elaine’s car was written off but her father Don Cayley said the family was just glad she came out uninjured.
“It’s just a car and we’ll buy another one,” he said.
“She’s as good as gold and very, very lucky, considering the amount of damage to the car.”
Elaine, who was driving on west on Mt Dandenong Tourist Road to see off a friend at the airport, had just passed Inverness Road when she lost control of her car in wet conditions.
“My back end slid out, which has happened before so I thought I’d just correct it,” she said.
“But I was just sliding towards the edge and I fell and my head fell towards the window.
“It was actually really, really slow and I kept thinking ‘this isn’t real, it isn’t happening, this is a dream’ until I looked up and saw how far I’d fallen – that’s when it hit me.”
The car landed on the driver’s side, trapping Elaine inside. She didn’t know what to do or who to call, but grabbed her phone and dialled for her dad.
“I got there two minutes after she fell off the hill but I drove past her at first because I couldn’t see her, so I tooted my car horn until she could hear me,” Mr Cayley said.
“I didn’t know what the situation was because it seemed really bad when we were on the phone, but I asked her how she was and she said she was all right, so I stayed with her until the emergency services crew arrived.”
Eleven CFA vehicles with about 30 firefighters, including rope rescue crews, were at the scene alongside police and paramedics.
Kalorama brigade captain Alex Felich said the whole extraction process, which involved using the jaws of life, went relatively well and was finished within an hour.
“The girl was very lucky – there was a similar accident there some time ago and that person certainly didn’t come out of it as well as she did,” he said.
Ambulance Victoria spokesman Paul Bentley echoed Mr Felich’s comments, saying Elaine was very lucky she went away only suffering some bruising and cuts.
After CFA crews carried her up the hill on a spine board, an ambulance took Elaine to Maroondah hospital in a stable condition, and she was sent home following three hours of observation.
“She was bouncing around the house today fairly happily so she’s fine and dandy,” Mr Cayley said.
Elaine said she only had a sore head, a scratch on her arm, and some bruises to show for the accident and considers herself very lucky to be where she is.
“It hit me last night and I realised I’m so lucky and I’m really glad and happy that nothing worse happened,” she said.
“Every single paramedic and CFA I saw that night told me to go get a lottery ticket.
“I got one this morning.”