The teenager shared her dramatic story of survival with NBC News.
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“It was just clouds, and then it was trees, and then it was fire”, she remembered. “And then it was fire”.
Now, for the first time since the accident, Autumn is opening up about how she heroically tried to save her grandparents from the plane erupting in flames.
“Then they both started freaking out … yelling, ‘turn the Global Positioning System back on”.
“I was really shocked”.
‘I was trying to pull them out and I just couldn’t do it. There was too much fire and I’m a small person.’.
[Wash.
Veatch’s step-grandparents, Leland and Sharon Bowman of Marion, Montana, were killed in the crash. They crashed right into the trees and hit the ground.
Recalling the moment of impact she said: ‘We completely lost sight of what was going on at all …
Bowman made a decision to fly higher.
Going down the mountain was tough. “And we just didn’t see anything until we saw trees”.
“She really needs something to comfort her”, he said. “I can’t die without having done this and this”, Veatch said. She said the Bowmans did not survive. “Her being able to come out and leave the hospital this quickly just goes to show that”.
Sixteen-year-old survivor Autumn Veatch on Thursday described a harrowing plane ride through heavy clouds, the crash, how she tried to save her grandfather from the fiery wreckage and her lone trek to safety.
(Philip A. Dwyer/The Bellingham Herald via AP). “If anybody could do it she could have done it, so we’re elated and happy for her”.
Doctors said they were astounded by her recovery after she survived the crash and hiked through rocky terrain to safety.
“I was trying to help them”.
Autumn recounted how when she was a fourth grader she and her father used to watch shows about surviving in the outdoors. Finally, she reached a highway.
The teen left the burning wreckage of the small plane and did what she could: She headed down the steep slope, following a creek to a river. It has a gain in elevation of about 2,800 feet. But I had like this sudden boost of hope.
Veatch soon ran across a small stream and followed it, but she spent the next three days braving “unforgiving” cliffs, waterfalls and extreme cold. Vetach was taken to hospital and was covered in burns and bruises but otherwise okay. Her hair was singed.
“And I just got this surge of willpower and was like there’s no way I can die without hugging somebody again”, she said. They bought her a sandwich and one of the men called police.
“I was riding from Kalispell, Mont., to Bellingham, Wash.”, she told the dispatcher.
Autumn developed rhabdomyolysis, a muscle disorder, during her ordeal, but suffered no life-threatening injuries, said Scott Graham, chief executive of Three Rivers Hospital.
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Officials will use dental records to confirm the identities, which could take about a week, Sias said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
