Trapped For A Week

Wow, this is an amazing story. On September 1st this eighteen-year-old kid crashed his car into a deep gorge out in Prince George's County, where it was hidden by the foliage over a creek, and he was trapped inside it. Yesterday -- the 8th -- he was finally able to get himself out and climb back up to the road.

A college student missing for more than a week was found dehydrated late yesterday on a roadside in Prince George's County, and he said he had finally managed to extricate himself from his car, which had plunged into a nearby ravine.

Julian McCormick, 18, a first-year student at Bowie State University, had been the object of an intensive search since he failed to keep an appointment with his girlfriend Sept. 1.

He was found scraped, bruised, dehydrated and possibly malnourished about 6 p.m. yesterday at Powder Mill and Soil Conservation roads near Beltsville, authorities and his family said.

"A burden has been lifted from my shoulders," his father, James McCormick, said last night. "Every night we went to bed wondering where our child was, whether he was hurting or suffering." Teen Found Alive More Than a Week Into Search

It sounds like not much is really known about what this guy did all week. He was in pretty bad shape when they found him lying by the side of the road.

WTOP has some more:

McCormick said he believes his son was stuck in the car the whole week and only climbed out Saturday.

[Leigh Ann] Hess said her mother was driving her and her two children from her mother's house in Beltsville to their home in Bowie at about 5 p.m. Three months pregnant, she wasn't feeling very well and was staring out the window when she spotted Julian McCormick lying by the road. He looked like he was bleeding heavily from his head, she said.

Her mother pulled over and dialed 911, while Hess ran up to McCormick.

"He wasn't moving but he was kind of reaching out with his fingers, like he was trying to flag down a car," she said.

As she stood talking to him, more cars pulled over and a crowd gathered. He told her his name, his age and that he goes to Bowie State. But when she asked how long he'd been there, he said, "At least since this morning."

"This kid has such a will to live," Hess said. "It just floors me." College Student Found Alive After Being Trapped After Crash

Man, this could've easily turned out differently. Those are going to be some happy parents.