STORM2K

Teen found alive after 8 days in wrecked car
Monday, October 11, 2004 Posted: 2:49 PM EDT (1849 GMT)


REDMOND, Washington (AP) -- A teenager was found alive in her wrecked car after being missing for eight days.

Laura Hatch, 17, last seen at a party October 2, was found Sunday in her 1996 Toyota Camry about 150 feet below a road in this suburb east of Seattle, King County sheriff's deputies said.

Hatch was listed in serious condition at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where she was being treated for dehydration, a possible blood clot, broken ribs, a broken leg and facial injuries, said her sister, Amy Hatch.

"We were afraid that we weren't going to find her, we weren't going to get her back," the sister told KING television in Seattle. "This is the best thing that could happen because there were a million awful scenarios."

Hatch evidently went eight days without food or water, sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said, adding that there had been no indication of foul play.

"There was no police search," he added. "We felt she was most likely a runaway."

Sha Nohr, whose daughter is a friend of Hatch, found the teen Sunday in a wooded area, where 200 volunteers had searched unsuccessfully the day before.

She said she had dreamed about a wooded area and went out to look Sunday with her daughter.

Along the way, Nohr said, she prayed: "I just thought, 'Let her speak out to us."' She barely managed to discern the wrecked car in some trees after climbing over a concrete barrier and down an embankment.

"I told her that people were looking for her and they loved her," Nohr recalled, "and she said, 'I think I might be late for curfew.' "

Nohr called to her daughter, who flagged down a passing motorist.

More than 100 people cheered and sang at a church prayer service Sunday night that initially had been planned as a vigil.

"We had already given her up and let her be dead in our hearts," the girl's mother, Jean Hatch, told KOMO-TV.

Josephine96 wrote:Glad she's alive and well

Laura Hatch's family had almost given her up for dead, and sheriff's deputies had all but written her off as a runaway. Then she was found, badly hurt and severely dehydrated, but alive and conscious, in the back seat of her crumpled Toyota Camry.