Teenage survivor of plane crash released from hospital

SEATTLE – With her step-grandparents dead or dying in the burning wreckage of their small plane, 16-year-old Autumn Veatch needed to somehow find her way off the remote, thickly forested Washington mountainside where they crashed Saturday afternoon.

Bruised by the impact, singed by the fire, fearing an explosion and knowing she couldn’t help the other victims, the girl did what she could: She headed down the steep slope, following a creek to a river. She spent a night on a sandbar, where she felt safer.

She followed the river to a trail, and the trail to a highway. Two men driving by stopped and picked her up Monday afternoon, bringing her – about two full days after the crash – to the safety of a general store in Mazama.

“We crashed, and I was the only one that made it out,” she told a 911 operator, after a store employee called for her.

As authorities continued searching for the plane’s wreckage Tuesday, aided by clues Veatch provided, they also marveled at the wherewithal of a teenager who managed to survive – and to later joke from her hospital bed about how it was a good thing her dad made her watch the television show “Survivor.”

“She’s got an amazing story, and I hope she gets to tell it soon,” said Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers, who had interviewed Veatch and relayed details of her ordeal to the Associated Press. “It’s pretty impressive when you talk to her.”

The teen was released from Three Rivers Hospital in Brewster on Tuesday evening, hospital spokeswoman Melanie Neddo confirmed.

According to Rogers, the Beechcraft A-35 was flying over north-central Washington on its way from Kalispell, Montana, to Lynden, Washington, when it entered a cloud bank. Then the clouds suddenly parted, and from her seat behind the cockpit, Veatch could see the mountain and trees ahead. Her step-grandfather, Leland Bowman, of Marion, Montana, was piloting with his wife, Sharon, by his side. He tried to pull up – to no avail.

They struck the trees and the plane plummeted to the ground and caught fire.

Veatch had no life-threatening injuries but was dehydrated and suffering from a treatable muscle tissue breakdown caused by vigorous exercise without food or water, hospital CEO Scott Graham said earlier.