Man trapped for 3 days in wrecked car off I-680 in North San Jose
Lisa Fernandez
Mercury News
Article Launched: 05/14/2008 06:01:38 PM PDT
Trapped for three days inside his wrecked black Cadillac Escalade with a broken femur, Duc Vinh Do moved in agony, searching for his cell phone - his only link to help.
Thousands of cars already had passed the SUV on San Jose's busy Interstate 680, and no one had spotted it in the thick brush.
Dehydrated, disoriented and in pain, Do finally crawled into the back seat at 4 p.m. Tuesday, found his cell and punched 911. But he didn't know where he was.
At first, rookie 911 operator Wendy Leslie thought Do might be delusional. San Jose police senior operator, Karen Lavrischeff, ended up tracking him down by "pinging" cell phone towers in the area to "triangulate" his SUV. Dispatcher Tara Doxie then set the officers in motion.
Police rushed to the area. But the tracking system sent them to the west side of the highway - opposite of where Do was trapped, 20 feet off northbound I-680 at Hostetter Road.
They couldn't find him.
So police Sgt. Paul Cook came up with a plan: Play the "hot and cold" game with police sirens. Officers hopped in their cars, sirens blaring, and dispatchers told Do to yell into his phone when he heard them.
But police still couldn't pinpoint Do's location because the sirens were still too far away from him.
Next police came up with another plan. They called the Santa Clara County Sheriff to borrow the department's Star One helicopter.
The helicopter pilot almost immediately spotted the black tire tracks that had veered off the road.
Officer Leslie Martin found Do's SUV. Firefighters and paramedics pulled him from his car at 5:05 p.m.
"This was an excellent job by our police and dispatchers," said Sgt. Mike Sullivan.
Do, a 31-year-old Milpitas resident, was on his way home late Saturday night after spending the evening in downtown San Jose. Police don't know why, but Do's Escalade veered off the highway and crashed into a tree.
He found himself trapped, his SUV hidden from view by a thick cover of bushes. No one reported him missing.
Finally, on Tuesday about 4 p.m. Do, who had survived on two bottles of water he had in his mangled SUV, made the call that saved his life.
Wednesday, Do was recovering in an intensive care unit at a local hospital and was not yet up to talking more about his ordeal - even to police.
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