Then finally a faint cry: “Help! Help!” The voice not only let Lavau’s children find him, it may have resolved another missing-person case.
Six days after his car plunged 200 feet into a ravine, Lavau, 68, was rescued Thursday by his three adult children, who took matters into their own hands after a detective told them his last cellphone signal came from a section of the Angeles National Forest.
And near him they found a body in another car that belonged to a man reported missing 10 days earlier.
As Lavau lay injured in the woods next to his wrecked car, he survived by eating bugs and leaves and drinking creek water, a doctor said.
Lavau was in serious but stable condition Friday at a hospital with three rib fractures, a dislocated shoulder, a broken arm and fractures in his back.
Ranbir Singh, the hospital’s trauma director, said Lavau told him he was driving home on the evening of Sept. 23 when he was temporarily blinded by the headlights of an oncoming car. He braked but failed to gain traction. The car flipped and plunged down the embankment.
It landed near a car belonging to Melvin Gelfand, 88, whose family had reported him missing on Sept. 14. The body found inside could not be visually identified due to decomposition. Gelfand’s son-in-law Will Matlack said the family had been contacted by the coroner’s office, which was trying to match fingerprints or dental records to make a positive identification.
Lavau spent the night in his wrecked car and crawled out in daylight. He found a stream nearby and ate ants, the doctor said. He also found a flare in the other car and tried to light it, but it was expired. He also couldn’t find his cellphone.
