A passerby who spotted a wreck in a Kentucky creek on Monday found a girl sleeping on an embankment after she freed herself from the crashed car and swam to safety, according to Kentucky State Police.
The girl’s mother, identified as 34-year-old Chasity Murphy, died in the wreck, Trooper Lloyd Cochran said in a news release.
State police got a report around 10 a.m. Monday of a car upside down and submerged in a Clay County creek. An official with the Clay County Coroner’s Office pronounced Murphy dead at the scene.
Troopers said Murphy was driving on South Highway 421 when she lost control of a 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier. The car left the road and plunged over an embankment before overturning in the creek, Cochran said.
She crashed sometime Sunday night, WKYT reported.
A motorist driving past the wreck on Monday noticed a girl sleeping on a nearby embankment and notified authorities. Police determined the girl was Murphy’s daughter, Mylee. She was a passenger in the car when it went into the creek.
“She survived the collision and escaped out of the vehicle, swam across the creek and climbed up the embankment to try to get help,” Cochran said.
Lee Roy Couch told WKYT that he found Mylee while troopers were at the scene.
"I lifted her over the guardrail and asked her what happened," Couch told the news station. "She said, 'My mommy wrecked and I climbed out the window.'"
He said that he believed it was no accident that he and his wife found Mylee.
“God works miracles,” he said. “There was just one spot where I could see the car, and that spot was where the kid was standing down the hill. You couldn't see her from the parkway.”
Mylee was taken to Manchester Memorial Hospital and later flown to the University of Kentucky Medical Center for treatment of her injuries.
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