WHEN rescue crews arrived, the scene appeared grim. A four-door sedan had plunged 250 feet (76m) down a cliff along a treacherous section of California's Highway 1, apparently flipping several times before landing feet from the churning Pacific Ocean.
But peering through binoculars, rescuers saw movement inside the Tesla, said Brian Pottenger, a battalion chief for Coastside Fire Protection District/Cal Fire.
At that moment, he said in a video shared on Twitter, “we knew that we had at least one person that was alive”.
After a highly technical operation at the coastal San Mateo County roadway, a seven-year-old girl, a four-year-old boy and two adults, both 41, were pulled from the wreckage alive but seriously injured. Rescue officials called it a miracle.
Now, investigators say they believe that the vehicle's driver, Dharmesh Arvind Patel, drove the Tesla off the cliff intentionally.
He was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and child abuse, the California Highway Patrol said late Tuesday.
Patel is in hospital and will be sent to San Mateo County Jail after treatment.
A lawyer for Patel could not immediately be identified.
The California Highway Patrol (CHP) said that it had not determined what driving mode the Tesla was in, but it did not “appear to be a contributing factor in this incident”.
The rescue operation began around 11am Monday at the stretch of highway called Devil's Slide, about 15 miles south of San Francisco in northern California.
Opened in 1937, the road has long been considered perilous, winding along a rocky cliff with a sheer drop-off to the ocean. Authorities made changes, including adding tunnels that bypass a dangerous part of the road, but fatalities have continued, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in June.
At least 30 deaths happened along the roadway between 1990 and 2021, the newspaper reported, citing a review of news stories over that timespan that does not capture every death.
Others have managed to survive, including a driver who had mild to moderate injuries after driving off the road in November.
"Any time we see a vehicle drive off a cliff and down such a steep cliffside, seeing people survive is incredible," CHP Officer Andrew Barclay told The Washington Post.
The Washington Post