Sister of motorist found on Big Sur beach: ‘It’s not going to be an easy recovery’

Rescue crews tend to Angela Hernandez at the bottom of a Monterey County cliff. Hernandez went missing on July 6 while driving from Portland to visit her sister in Southern California. Rescue crews tend to Angela Hernandez at the bottom of a Monterey County cliff. Hernandez went missing on July 6 while driving from Portland to visit her sister in Southern California. Photo: Monterey County Sheriff’s Office Photo: Monterey County Sheriff’s Office Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Sister of motorist found on Big Sur beach: ‘It’s not going to be an easy recovery’ 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

Angela Hernandez sat injured and dazed for seven days on a small craggy beach at the bottom of a cliff along Central California’s picturesque coastline, surviving on water she captured with a broken hose from her wrecked Jeep, anxiously hoping someone would find her.

Help came Friday, when a pair of hikers spotted the missing 23-year-old Oregon woman calling for help from the remote Monterey County beach in Big Sur after she vanished a week earlier while driving from Portland to her sister’s home in Southern California.

“My sister is alive, she’s talking, and she’s still trying to come to understand everything,” Angela’s sister Isabel Hernandez wrote on Facebook early Saturday. “She’s a fighter and she fought this long and she will continue to. It’s not going to be an easy recovery. I hope everyone will have patience for her and her recovery.”

The case captured widespread attention due to the unusual circumstances of Hernandez’s disappearance, leaving many questioning why and how she could have vanished. The last clues came from a surveillance camera at a gas station that showed her vehicle south of Carmel on July 6, and then a mysterious ping on a cell phone tower in Santa Cruz County.

A Morro Bay couple who were camping at Big Sur said they spotted Hernandez’s car on Friday when they were hiking on a remote beach, according to the Tribune of San Luis Obispo.

The campers, Chelsea and Chad Moore, found Hernandez a short time later. Chad Moore stayed with Hernandez on the beach while his wife ran back to the campground to call for help.

Morro Bay residents Chad & Chelsea Moore were hiking in #BigSur Friday night when they located Angela Hernandez at the bottom of an oceanside cliff. The 23-year-old Oregon woman survived for 7 days after her car plunged some 200 feet over the edge. https://t.co/GeLmWjcAZD — Lucas Clark (@LucasClark_SLO) July 15, 2018

Angela Hernandez told rescuers she swerved to avoid hitting an animal that morning along the winding stretch of Highway 1, lost control of her white Jeep Patriot and plunged 200 feet over a cliff north of Nacimiento Fergusson Road at the south end of Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, California Highway Patrol officials said.

She miraculously survived the wreck and was conscious and breathing, lying outside of the Jeep when she was discovered by the hikers shortly after 6:30 p.m. Friday. Crews from multiple jurisdictions quickly began the complicated operation of hoisting the young woman to safety.

Rescuers on the beach found Hernandez in fair and stable condition and began treating her for a concussion and injured shoulder before airlifting her to Twin Cities Community Hospital in Templeton (San Luis Obispo County), officials said.

She stayed alive “by drinking water from the radiator of her vehicle,” the CHP said in a press release. But Hernandez later explained in a Facebook post that she found a piece of broken hose from her wrecked Jeep and used it to capture water dripping down from a patch of moss.

The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office posted pictures of the remarkable rescue Friday, showing paramedics treating the young woman on the beach under the sheer cliffside.

Hernandez had been on a road trip from her home in Portland to visit her sister Isabel in Lancaster (Los Angeles County). Before authorities found the surveillance video, her last known whereabouts were in a Safeway parking lot in Half Moon Bay, where she had slept for the night and texted her sister the morning of July 6, saying she was hitting the road.

Investigators later picked up a signal from her cell phone that bounced off a tower near Davenport (Santa Cruz County), about 40 miles south of Half Moon Bay.

After not hearing from her for hours and then days, her family grew increasingly concerned. A $10,000 reward was offered for information leading to her whereabouts as family members descended on the area and deputies began searching on the ground and from the air.

Isabel Hernandez thanked her sister’s rescuers on her Facebook page: “As you know, my sister survived 7 days alone 200 feet down a cliff,” she wrote. “Thank you all for everything ... for her rescue and for bringing her up the cliff. She says she met so many beautiful people.”

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Steve Rubenstein contributed to this report.

Evan Sernoffsky and Lauren Hernandez are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com, lauren.hernandez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky, @LaurenPorFavor