US teen Autumn Veatch hikes to safety after plane crash at Cascade Mountain range in Washington
Updated
A teenage girl has survived a plane crash and then used knowledge picked up from watching survival shows on television to hike for two days out of the wilderness, US media and her parents say.
Autumn Veatch, 16, was in hospital after the small plane she was travelling in with her step-grandparents on Saturday plunged into the Cascade Mountain range in Washington state, the Seattle Times reported.
Reported missing and feared dead, Autumn tried to pull her step-grandparents â Leland and Sharon Bowman â from the plane and when that failed followed a river to a road before making her way to a nearby store, the paper said.
"We crashed and I was the only one that made it out ... the only one that survived," she told a 911 emergency dispatcher.
"I have a lot of burns on my hands and I'm ... covered in bruises and scratches and stuff."
Her father David Veatch told reporters: "She watches a lot of survival shows with me ... I think she did good."
Autumn had nothing to eat or drink for several days, a first responder told the newspaper.
She was hospitalised in the town of Brewster but had no serious injuries.
Crews are still searching for the plane, the Seattle Times reported, and authorities have not confirmed the fate of the Bowmans or said what might have caused the crash as they flew to Montana.
Rick LeDuc, the owner of the store, said Autumn told them she only remembered flying through clouds and then there was an impact.
"She related that she had been in an accident and had spent the last two days walking basically down a creek that turned into a larger creek ... and came across a trailhead, found Highway 20 and then waited for somebody to pick her up," he told Komo 4 News.
He said the teenager was "clearly rattled and shaken by the experience".
"She hadn't eaten for two days. There have been some pretty incredible stories in the Cascades, but this one would definitely rank right up there," Mr LeDuc said.
