"I said thank you for calling me because you saved my life," he said to his girlfriend, whose call made him get out of the car.
When fate is on our side, we can even evade death. A California man, Mauricio Henao was in the driver's seat when he received a call from his girlfriend on January 10, according to KCAL-TV, which led him to get out of the vehicle. "She said 'Hey, check the bag I left in the house'," Henao recalled. "I went inside and that's when the noise started coming from the front of the house," he added.
As per New York Post, his near-death experience took place in the 20000 block of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, where Mauricio Henao had parked his Toyota Prius across from his house. He left the car to take the call and then heard the sounds of massive rocks tumbling down the hillside, reported CNN.
Mauricio Henao got out of his car following a request via phone from his girlfriend to check something. Moments later the vehicle was crushed by a falling rock.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) January 12, 2023
Weather conditions in California are being blamed for numerous landslides: https://t.co/CrpgMJscSz pic.twitter.com/5tQjoDjp8B
In no time, Henao's vehicle was crushed by a four-foot boulder. "The rock is the size of the whole hood," he told the CW station KTLA. "The windshields are all broken and the frame of the car is just all twisted," he said describing the aftermath. "I felt goosebumps because if wasn't for that call," Henao told KCAL, "I probably wouldn't be here or somebody else could have died." Debris from the hillside fell over four lanes of traffic, according to KTLA. While no one was injured, several other cars were also damaged by rocks falling down the hillside.
Mauricio Henao is thankful to be alive after dodging a potentially horrific incident. While taking a phone call from his girlfriend outside his parked vehicle, a boulder came crashing down on his car. The stone landed right in the driver’s seat, where he would have been sitting. pic.twitter.com/mE1IB7DScD
— Inside Edition (@InsideEdition) January 13, 2023
Henao is taken aback by the incident and he said, “I’m pretty shook up,” he said, according to KTLA. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ll park here again after this. I’m a little traumatized by this whole ordeal,” he added. Meanwhile, resident Nick Kennedy, who lived nearby, told the station, "I'm kind of glad my car was there," adding, "I don't know if [the rocks] would have gone through the wall of the house and nailed me because my desk is right on the other side of that wall."
Malibu resident Mauricio Henao witnessed the rockslide come tumbling down the hillside and onto his car—only minutes before sitting inside. https://t.co/UJmueV6kXZ
— The Malibu Times (@TheMalibuTimes) January 12, 2023
Henao is also deeply grateful to his girlfriend. "I said thank you for calling me because you saved my life," he recalled saying to his girlfriend, per KCAL. He further joked, "If I'm this lucky, I should probably play the lotto right now." Henao also compared his brush with death to a plotline from the Final Destination horror movie franchise but he was grateful to be safe.
The rockslide was the result of a historic storm that hit California earlier this week. The fatal storm left millions under flood watches, toppled trees, and flooded roadways. However, It is now being predicted that the state is finally getting a break from extreme weather, according to CNN. Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis told CNN that after "four years with very little rain," the state experienced "about a year's worth of rainfall" in just three weeks.
‘Years to rebuild’: Biden takes in scale of California storm destruction on visit https://t.co/u4XZTdHhw8
— Guardian news (@guardiannews) January 20, 2023
References:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/15/us/california-boulder-crushes-car-trnd/index.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/17/weather/california-flooding-atmospheric-river-tuesday/index.html
https://nypost.com/2023/01/11/giant-boulder-crushes-car-in-california/
