Car’s crash alert led searchers to wreck off Sonoma cliff; it took an hour to find the ejected driver

A ranger who climbed down to the wreckage found the car empty.

A driver who was ejected when his car went off Highway 1 on a rugged area of the Sonoma County coast was found critically injured after an hour of searching, the sheriff’s office said.

The crash was reported Sunday morning by the car’s automatic crash notification system, with the coordinates indicating it was near Jewell Gulch, between Jenner and Fort Ross.

A state parks ranger located the wreckage about 200 feet down a steep slope; a tree had stopped it from dropping all the way to the ocean.

When the ranger climbed down to check for occupants, the vehicle was empty, said the report from the sheriff’s office.

Around 8 a.m., the Sonoma County sheriff’s helicopter was deployed to search for the driver. With a crew member dangling on a 100-foot line, the helicopter flew over the area. After about an hour, the searchers focused on a ravine where the dirt had been disturbed, and they finally found the victim in a patch of brush about 350 feet from the car.

A paramedic was lowered to the victim, who was flown to a trauma hospital. Though critically injured, he is expected to survive, the sheriff’s report said.