Driver rescued five days after pickup truck plunged 100 feet off cliff

A pickup truck driver who miraculously survived for five days after plunging down a 100-foot ravine in Southern California has been rescued, authorities say.

The injured driver was left “immobilised” after his vehicle went off Comanche Point Rd in Kern County on 29 August, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, the Kern County Fire Department said in a statement.

His badly-damaged truck was spotted by a passer-by at the bottom of the sheer ravine in the in the Tehachapi Mountains between the towns of Arvin and Stallion Springs just before 11am on 2 September, the department said.

Emergency officials located the vehicle at the bottom of a 100-foot cliff, and lowered a firefighter down to the injured driver using a rope while calling for additional support.

Four fire engines and more than 20 firefighters were involved in the rescue effort, including specialist urban search and rescue teams, according to an incident report.

Three more firefighters were lowered down to the crash site, and the driver was placed on a stokes basket and pulled back to the road using a human pulley system.

Dramatic photographs issued by the fire department showed the rescue workers carrying the man while attached to ropes tied to vehicles.

The driver was then taken to a landing zone by the Bakersfield-based Hall Ambulance Service, before he was air-lifted to hospital by a Mercy Air 15 air ambulance.

“The patient was injured and had been immobilised at the bottom of the ravine since Tuesday, August 29th,” according to the Kern County Fire Department.

The injured driver’s name and condition have not yet been released.

The California Highway Patrol and the Stallion Springs Police Department also took part in the rescue effort.