Girl dragged to crash safety by 4-year-old sister

PORTLAND, Ore. -- As their mother lay dead in the middle of the night, a 4-year-old girl dragged her seriously injured 2-year-old sister from a crashed car and the two huddled under a blanket -- and waited.

With the mangled car stuck deep in the woods, and no skid marks on the highway, the site was nearly impossible to detect.

It's estimated the sisters were alone in the frigid woods for several hours early Wednesday as motorists drove past it.

The girls finally got help after two commercial fishermen spotted what appeared from a distance to be a basketball-sized gash in an alder tree along State Highway 401 between Astoria, Ore., and Naselle, Wash.

Kraai McClure and Scott Beutler decided to turn around and go take a look. McClure said he called 911 for any reports of a wreck during the night. There were none. Beutler, who was a first responder when he lived in Mississippi, went into the brush and McClure alerted authorities.

The men spotted the wreck a few hundred feet from the road. Nearby were the two girls, scared and confused. "They could say their names but were totally in shock," McClure said.

Washington State Patrol said their mother, Jessica Rath, 26, of Astoria, probably was asleep when she veered off the road and struck the tree shortly after midnight. She died at the scene.

Lylah Huff, 2, with serious leg injuries, was flown to a Portland hospital. Aryanna, 4, was treated at an Astoria hospital and released. Investigators believe Aryanna pulled Lylah from the vehicle and helped her to a spot 20 feet away, where the fishermen found them. -- AP