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Woman survived using a hose, music and wet sand after car plunged off Big Sur cliff

A Portland woman survived seven days by collecting spring water with a radiator hose, using music to keep positive and cooling herself with ocean spray after a crash left her stranded, her ribs and shoulders broken, between the ocean and a Big Sur cliff.

Angela Hernandez, 23, of Portland, Ore., who was rescued a week after her Jeep plummeted 250 feet down a cliff on Highway 1 July 6, is in "great spirits," said Monterey County Sheriff Steve Bernal at a Monday press conference.

"Angela is an amazing, amazing young woman," Bernal said at the press conference, where he detailed the search for Hernandez, her ordeal and her rescue.

She is currently recovering at a hospital that Bernal declined to name at the family's request. She suffered a brain hemorrhage, four broken ribs, broken collar bones, a collapsed lung and signs of exposure, including intense sunburns.

Hikers found Hernandez after spotting the wreckage of her 2011 white Jeep around 6 p.m. Friday, according to California Highway Patrol.

As they continued a rugged trail, they saw an injured woman, later determined to be Hernandez, suffering from exposure, Bernal said.

Hernandez had awoken and begun yelling at them to get their attention, seeing the female hiker first, Bernal said. The hikers weren't aware she'd been reported missing.

"They were just as much shocked as she was," he said.

The man stayed and gave her fresh water while the woman ran to the U.S. Forest Service to get help, Bernal said.

The hikers also picked up some of her belongings strewn about in the crash, Bernal said.

Bernal said he had not spoken with Hernandez, only her sister, but recounted her ordeal.

His description lines up with a Facebook post by Angela Hernandez Monday morning about the crash.

Hernandez was driving southbound on Highway 1 when she swerved to avoid an animal in the road, Bernal said.

She left the highway and plunged more than 200 feet down a cliff.

She wrote that she didn't remember the fall, instead recalling that she awoke to water coming over her knees as she sat in the driver's seat. She touched her aching head and discovered she was bleeding.

All the windows were rolled up, so she used a multipurpose tool kept in her Jeep to bash the glass and escaped, swimming to shore, Bernal said.

Then she said she wandered up and down the beach, looking for another person.

"The back of my jeans were torn apart, my socks were nothing but holes and I could start feeling the effects of dehydration," she wrote.

On the third day, parched, she used a black 10-inch hose dislodged from her Jeep's radiator to gather condensed water dripping off moss, she said. She spent an hour obtaining the trickling water and then kept the hose in a sweater pocket, she wrote.

She suffered intense sunburns to her face, but walked close to the ocean and put wet sand in her hair to keep cool during the day, Bernal said.

Songs, some she hadn't heard in years, played in her head and kept her positive until her rescue, Hernandez wrote.

At first, she thought the hikers were a dream — she'd seen several mirages so far, she wrote.

"I couldn't believe that they were even real. I couldn't believe that we had finally found each other," she said.

Meanwhile, law enforcement had been searching the Central Coast for her, Bernal said.

They used a Big Sur gas station's surveillance footage and a few cell phone pings — the coast has spotty reception — to narrow the search to a 60 mile stretch of jagged coastal cliffs between Nacimiento-Ferguson Road and the Carmel Highlands, Bernal said.

Monterey County Sheriff Steve Bernal shares what those seven days were like for Angela Hernandez, who survived seven days between a cliff and the Pacific Ocean after crashing down a hillside in Big Sur Joe Szydlowski/The Californian

But foggy, overcast weather limited their air and ground search efforts after the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office notified Monterey law enforcement July 11, he said.

Upon hearing from the hikers, the California Highway Patrol helicopter was used to airlift her in a special stretcher out of the area and to Twin Cities Community Hospital in Templeton, Bernal said.

The only trail in the area was too rugged for Hernandez, with her injuries, to climb, Bernal said.

"Even a fit, healthy person would have had a tough time," he said.

Her sister, Isabel Hernandez, has created a gofundmeaccount that says the Jeep was Angela Hernandez's livelihood.

Isabel Hernandez also wrote that her sister will have a long road to recovery from the crash.

Along the serpentine Highway 1, drivers should not swerve for any reason, even to avoid hitting an animal, Bernal said.

Follow Joe Szydlowski on Twitter: @JoeSzyd_Salinas