AN AMERICAN WOMAN has been found alive six days after her car flew off a highway and landed on a tree in the state of Arizona, police said today. 

The 53-year-old woman was traveling on national route 60 near Wickenburg, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Phoenix, when she lost control on 12 October, the Arizona Department of Public Safety said in a news release.

According to state troopers, the woman crashed through a highway railing and plunged 50 feet into a mesquite tree where the vehicle “remained suspended above the ground.

There were no apparent witnesses to the crash and it would be six days before the woman would be discovered by authorities.

On 18 October, an Arizona highway maintenance crew and a rancher were trying to corral a stray cow when they noticed the broken fence, then the mangled vehicle still lodged in the tree.

A trooper, along with the maintenance crew and rancher, could not find anyone in the car but discovered “human tracks” leading towards a river bed.

After following the tracks for 500 yards, the rescuers found the severely dehydrated woman with serious injuries, the statement said.

The woman told the trooper that she stayed inside her vehicle for “several days” before she climbed out and tried to walk towards railroad tracks in the hope she would be found. But she was too weak to make it.

The woman was taken by helicopter to hospital after her rescue.

Colonel Frank Milstead, the Department of Public Safety Director, praised the rescuers’ diligence.

“Due to their outstanding efforts, this woman’s life was saved.”