Heroic teenage survivor. (The Goodness of America).

Mrs. Allison Kay Phillips of Alamosa, Colrado, had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder (which entails wide mood swings), but had stopped taking medication for the malady last October. On January 2nd, Phillips, her daughter Kayla, stepsons Christopher and Carlos Large, and cousin Roxanna Vega piled into her car for the 100-mile trip to visit a friend in Ignacio.

At around 8 p.m. on the way back, they reached the peak of Wolf Creek Pass near the Wolf Creek Ski Area and were descending the other side when they suddenly veered across three lanes of traffic and plunged over the edge of a snow-covered mountain slope. Police speculate that Phillips intended suicide.

The vehicle plummeted about 160 feet down the mountainside. Phillips was ejected and trapped under a huge boulder dislodged by the falling car. She lived for a few hours, but died before rescuers arrived the next morning. Three-year-old Kayla also died. But 16-year-old Roxanna and the two boys miraculously survived.

Roxanna had been holding four-year-old Christopher when the car went airborne. Both were thrown from the vehicle. Eight-year-old Carlos remained inside, his legs trapped beneath the crushed steering wheel. Roxanna tried, without success, to remove the boulder that was pinning Mrs. Phillips.

The boys' injuries were not life-threatening, but there was no way to know it at the time. Roxanna, however, suffered massive injuries that included a broken back (fractured vertebrae), broken left ankle, and broken left arm. Surgeons who later worked on her were astonished that she had not died in the crash.

Despite her condition, Roxanna was able to make it back with Christopher to the crumpled car and Carlos. As the temperature dropped to 24 degrees, the trio huddled for warmth in the wreckage until daybreak. Then Roxanna, aware that their survival largely depended on her alone, began inching her way back up the slope toward the roadway.

A March 8th Associated Press dispatch noted that during the climb her "left foot ...