Similar story to a post here a couple of days ago.

Link:

Wash. police find her trapped in vehicle, which had fallen 20 feet from road
MSNBC
Updated: 5:05 p.m. PT Sept 27, 2007

A Maple Valley, Wash., woman who went missing Sept. 19 was found alive on Thursday, trapped in her car that had crashed down a steep ravine, police told several media sources.

Tanya Rider, 33, was found around 2:30 p.m. in her dark blue Honda Element near Renton.

The vehicle had fallen nearly 20 feet from the road into heavy brush. State Patrol spokesman Jeff Merrill told The Seattle Times that the area was "rugged and not easily accessible."

Rider was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, rescue officials said, adding that she was alert and talking.

"She looks very pale, very dehydrated. She didn't have a lot of cuts but had difficulty breathing," Merrill told the Times. "We have a lot of unanswered questions right now."

Rider was reported missing on Sept. 19 after leaving her overnight shift at a Fred Meyer store in Bellevue. The King County Sheriff's Office has been searching for the woman ever since.

Rider’s husband said he was taking a polygraph at the sheriff's office when he got the news she was alive, The Associated Press reported.

Her cell phone generated a signal after a week had passed?

What did she drink?

Heres' a bit more detail. I was sceptical she'd still be alive too (but then I'm the man who thought the water filter that removes viruses was a hoax). Maybe it rained. It was Seattle after all.
Simon

Missing Maple Valley WA woman found in car down ravine
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MAPLE VALLEY, Wash. -- A 33-year-old woman who had been missing for eight days was found alive Thursday in her car at the bottom of a steep ravine along a highway she traveled to and from work.

Tanya Rider of Maple Valley, south of Seattle, responded to her name when her Honda Element was found on State Highway 169 southeast of Renton, State Patrol Sgt. Dave Divis said.

King County sheriff's investigators had traced a signal from her cell phone to a three-to-five mile radius.

They used that information to recheck a segment of the highway, State Patrol spokesman Jeff Merrill said. On Thursday afternoon, they saw something they hadn't noticed before: some brush that was matted down along the roadside. Below it they found her car, smashed on its side.

"She looks very pale, very dehydrated. She didn't have a lot of cuts but had difficulty breathing," Merrill said.

She was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where she was in critical condition in intensive care Thursday night, hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg-Hanson said.

The woman was last seen Sept. 19 after leaving her shift at a Fred Meyer store in the east Seattle suburb of Bellevue.

Rider's car had tumbled about 20 feet down the ravine and lay buried below heavy brush and blackberry bushes. Rescuers had to slice the roof off to get her out.

Her husband, Tom Rider, said he had been just sitting down to take a polygraph test at the King County sheriff's office so officers could exclude him as a suspect in his wife's disappearance, when officers told him the car had been found.

"I wanted to make sure they weren't focusing on me, that they were focusing on Tanya," he said.

Tom Rider, who was able to see his wife at the hospital and say "hello," said she had been trapped in the car the entire time she was missing.

"Pretty much she's fighting for her life," he said, adding she was suffering from kidney failure and from sores from lying in the same position for a week.

Tom Rider said his wife regularly commuted along that stretch of road. He added he had searched along the highway several times himself.

He had offered a $25,000 reward for any information leading to his wife's return.

yeah, i want to know what type of cell she had too! a week... I assume she wasn't able to call on it for whatever reason, so that probably helped extend it's life.

Reminds me of a story a few years back, in Los Angeles. Car wrecked, flew off the freeway overpass, got tangled up in some trees. She was there 3-4 days before the local DOT crew found her. In the MIDDLE of the freakin' city! Rush hour was passing 50 feet from her and no one saw a thing.

All it needs is a thin wall of bushes and you are invisible.
People have collapsed and lain for days in a supermarket car parks bushes.
Thats' why carrying a whistle at all times and some flares in the cars sun visor is advised.
simon

More details have emerged on this story here.

the police of that city is obviously need to review its procedure in search of missing persons. The husband was clearly in distressed over his missing wife. The police was apathetic to the missing person.

The detective in charge of the case was probably dimwit or lost his marbles. The police could have called the phone company to trace the last location of her phone. Then the police should have sent a investigative unit to that area. The woman was severely injured that she couldn't call for help. US phone companies have the ability to track the location of the caller for the FBI. Why can't the police think of such idea?

Is that unusual? My previous phone - an SE P900 - would normally use around 10% a day on standby, and would last a well over a week if fully charged at the start.

My current phone, an SE P1i, claims about 18 days on standby, but it is too new for me to verify that. (I'm seeing a lot less, but I think the battery will take a few charges to mature, I'm playing with it more because it is new, and I suspect the backlight sometimes comes on accidentally in my pocket.)

Certain models of mobile phones will last one or even two weeks easily on standby. The manufacturer usually supplies a standby time rating for their phones, but keep in mind that these ratings are for perfect conditions (i.e., you’re standing 2 feet away from the cell tower so the phone uses minimal power to keep a signal) and are rarely achieved.

She may have made the call right after the accident, and it was just that no one was seriously looking until later. Isn't that what happened with James Kim? No one was sitting at a phone co. computer screen when the ping happened, I think they tracked it later. Probably the same here.

I've heard it before that unless the missing person is a minor, or there's some evidence of foul play, the police aren't interested.

Also, the couple apparently had a joint checking account with two cards. They tracked her card and discovered that it was being used, so they assumed she was using it, when actually it was her husband using the companion card for gas, etc, while he was looking for her. The fact that she could have been murdered and the killer was using her card apparently escaped the police.

Yesterday's TV news said they don't have health insurance because they were both working two jobs to buy a house. She probably fell asleep and went off the road.

The little trailer at the bottom of the TV news screen said that she has slipped into a coma. No details.

Sue

I keep an adapter cable in my car for charging my cell phone from a 12 volt outlet. But all of the 12 volt outlets in my car are switched, i.e., dead unless the car key is not off. Even the car's battery won't last long when the key is not off.

(a car with GM's OnStar or LexusLink would answer a call for 30 days at least,if anyone thinks to try it. But this was a Honda Element)

This finally nudged me to order an AA charger for my cell phone (I already carry a set of Lithium AA in the car for the GPS). My call phone charges from a USB cable so I got BoxWave unit that takes 4 AA and has a USB connector to charge from.

PS. 7 days seems to be the standby time most marketing types want to claim, and the engineers often come close in good conditions. But she was well below terrain after the fall and covered by brush, and she was on the way home so when was the last full charge?

Do you get the feeling that the police were a little too quick to jump on the foul play idea before a thorough search was conducted of the route of travel. Precious time was lost and she was found through "accident"?

"Do you get the feeling that the police were a little too quick to jump on the foul play idea before a thorough search was conducted of the route of travel. Precious time was lost and she was found through "accident"?"

The LEOs on the case seem to be a tad defensive, according to the papers.

If her husband was going to kill her, he should do it on vacation in Nye Co, NV.

Sue