Emergency crews responding to Pacific Coast Highway early Sunday morning found a Honda Accord about 75 feet below the roadway, sitting on the rocky shoreline near Mugu Rock.
According to CHP Ventura, calls started coming in around 5:04 a.m. reporting that a vehicle had gone off southbound State Route 1.
When crews reached the scene, they found a gray 2006 Honda Accord with one man still inside.
And somehow, he was awake.
The Accord Went Right Off The Cliff
CHP says the driver, a 37-year-old man from Oxnard, had been heading south toward Mugu Rock at a high rate of speed.
For reasons that are still being investigated, the Accord turned to the right, left the roadway and struck a rock.
Then it went over the edge.
The car dropped about 75 feet before landing among the rocks along the shoreline.
Despite all of that, CHP says the driver was still sitting in the driver’s seat when emergency crews got to him. He was alert, conscious and talking with rescuers.
Firefighters were able to get him out safely, and he was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital with what appeared to be minor injuries.
Minor injuries after a 75-foot drop onto rocks is a pretty wild outcome.
CHP Is Still Trying To Figure Out Why It Happened
Investigators haven’t said what caused the driver to leave the roadway.
CHP says the report of high speed comes from preliminary information and witness statements gathered at the scene.
The agency also says it is not yet known whether alcohol or drugs played any role in the crash.
So while people in the Facebook comments had plenty of theories about what happened, those are still just theories.
One person suggested the driver may have gone over the cliff intentionally. CHP has not said anything indicating that.
Anyone who saw the crash or has information about it is being asked to contact the CHP Ventura Area.
People Had One Very Familiar Question
A bunch of people reacting to CHP’s post immediately asked some version of the same thing:
Didn’t another car just go over the cliff around there?
“Is this the second one recently?” one commenter wrote. “Didn’t a Volvo SUV go over a few days ago?”
Another asked, “Isn’t this like the third one in like the last few days?”
At least one recent crash helps explain why people were asking.
Just a few days earlier, another vehicle went over a cliff in the Point Mugu area.
ABC7 Los Angeles reported that rescuers were called to Point Mugu State Park Thursday evening after a vehicle plunged from Pacific Coast Highway and landed on rocks below.
That vehicle had one person inside, an adult woman.
Rescuers got her out and hoisted her back up the cliff before she was taken to a hospital.
The cause of that crash was also under investigation.
There is nothing tying the two crashes together, and there’s no reason yet to think they happened for the same reason.
But two cars going over the cliffs around Point Mugu only a few days apart is definitely enough to make locals start noticing.
The Comments Were Pretty Much What You’d Expect
Once people realized the driver had apparently made it through the crash with only minor injuries, some of the comments turned toward the car itself.
“Wow. Good for the Honda,” one person wrote.
Another asked:
“Did anyone tell him he’s not supposed to park there?”
Several people also pointed out that the crash happened around low tide.
“So very lucky it happened when it did, during low tide,” one commenter wrote, saying the car might have ended up underwater at another time of day.
Another said, “Luckily it wasn’t high tide.”
CHP hasn’t said whether the tide had anything to do with the outcome, but looking at where the Accord ended up, it’s easy to understand why people noticed it.
Whatever the exact combination of luck, timing and crash dynamics, this could have ended very differently.
Instead, rescuers climbed down to a Honda sitting on the rocks 75 feet below PCH and found the driver awake, talking and apparently dealing with only minor injuries.
And it happened just days after another driver had to be pulled from below the cliffs at Point Mugu.