On November 20, 1988, the Los Angeles Times reported, “A screaming women trapped in a car dangling from a freeway transition road in East Los Angeles was rescued Saturday morning. The 19-year-old woman apparently fell asleep behind the wheel about 12:15 a.m. The car, which plunged through a guardrail, was left dangling by its left rear wheel. A half dozen passing motorists stopped, grabbed some ropes from one of their vehicles, tied the ropes to the back of the woman’s car, and hung on until the fire units arrived. A ladder was extended from below to help stabilize the car while firefighters tied the vehicle to tow trucks with cables and chains. “Every time we would move the car,” said one of the rescuers, “she’d yell and scream. She was in pain.”
“It took almost 2 1/2 hours for the passer-by, CHP officers, tow truck drivers, and firefighters — about 25 people in all — to secure the car and pull the woman to safety. “It was kinda funny,” L.A. County Fire Capt. Ross Marshall recalled later. “She kept saying, “I’ll do it myself.”
There are times when self-sufficiency goes too far.