After car flipped, baby survived 14 hours inches above icy Utah river
A baby girl’s survival is being called a miracle after she was discovered hanging upside down just inches above the frigid Spanish Fork River in Utah.
The Deseret News reports that Jennifer Groesbeck, 25, was driving home from her parents’ home on Friday night when her car went off the road, hit a concrete barrier and landed upside down in the river. She was killed in the accident, but her 18-month-old daughter, Lily Groesbeck, survived the initial impact. However, she was left suspended in her car seat as water gushed through the car and overnight temperatures dropped to the 30s.
Around noon the next day, a fisherman happened upon the scene and called it in to police — who aren’t able to explain what happened next.
“We’ve gotten together and just talkin’ about it, and all four of us can swear that we heard somebody inside the car saying, ‘Help,'” officer Jared Warner said on Sunday. “We’re not exactly sure where that voice came from.”
One of the other responders said he heard the voice, too.
“It wasn’t just something that was just in our heads. To me it was plain as day cause I remember hearing a voice. I think it was Dewitt who said, ‘We’re trying. We’re trying our best to get in there.’ How do you explain that?” officer Tyler Beddoes said. “We know there was some other help there, getting us where we needed to be.”
The river was so cold that three of the officers and four firefighters were later treated for hypothermia, but they were first able to rescue baby Lily, who was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. Today, aunt Jill Sanderson said on a Go Fund Me page that her speedy recovering is “astounding.”
“Right now she’s watching Dora and singing ‘Wheels on the Bus’ with Grandpa,” she said. “She is smiling and laughing for family members. We’re blown away by Lily’s progress and so grateful to her rescuers.”
The page, which was established to help with Lily’s medical costs and Jennifer’s funeral expenses, has surpassed its $8,000 goal by nearly $20,000.
