"Lucky to be alive" after car plunges 150 feet down hillside

VANDERGRIFT, Pa. — A 2-year-old was not hurt when a car he was in plunged 150 feet down a Westmoreland County hillside Tuesday afternoon.

Neighbors tell Channel 11 the child's mother was cleaning out the back of her SUV around 3:30 p.m. on Sherman Avenue in Vandergrift.  The child was in the front seat and somehow knocked the car out of gear, sending it down the hillside.

Witnesses tell Channel 11 the car rolled several times before crashing at the bottom.  A neighbor said he ran down the hillside to find the child climbing out of the SUV.

"I just heard some crashing, some yelling," said Alex Lee. "They had to have rolled at least three or four times. I heard there was a little boy in the car, I had to go down and get him."

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The mother was run over by the car when she tried to stop it from going over the hill. She was not seriously hurt.

"That little boy wasn't even crying, a strong little boy," Lee said.

Neighbors said they would like to see a guardrail put in place to keep accidents like this from happening again.

Cox Media Group