A 7-year-old girl walked
three-quarters of a mile through rugged terrain Friday night — after
surviving a plane crash that killed her father, mother, sister, and
cousin.
The child had
been aboard her family’s Piper PA-34 heading from Key West, Fla., to
their home state of Illinois, but the plane crashed in western Kentucky.
Larry
Wilkins of Lyon County says the little girl, who was dressed in a light
top and shorts for Florida sunshine, reached his front door after
braving some of the “toughest land you’ll ever see in your life”
barefooted, in the dark.
“That’s
one tough little girl, brave little girl,” Wilkins said in an interview
with Yahoo News Saturday morning. “I don’t even walk through it in the
daylight.”
The child told
Wilkins that her mother and father had just died and she was in a plane
crash. The wreckage was later found in a wooded area off the Buckberry
Trail.
“Her little legs were just cut up all over from briars and
[tree] limbs. She had a bloody nose,” Wilkins said. “She was of course
crying a little bit. But she was coherent and pretty poised for a
7-year-old girl who had just gotten out of a plane crash.”
Kentucky State Police arrived at his home within 10 minutes and EMT workers quickly followed, he said.
She was transported to a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
Kentucky State Police Sgt. Dean Patterson says she was released to family about 1:15 a.m.
It
took police just over two hours to locate the crash site and the four
victims inside the plane. The coroner was notified and officers stayed
on the scene to make sure no one tampered with it before federal
investigators could arrive, Patterson said.
“Before the plane went
down, a distress call was sent to Memphis Center stating that they had
engine problems,” he told Yahoo News when asked about the cause of the
crash.
National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration investigators will investigate the incident.
Early
Saturday morning, Kentucky State Police identified the four victims as
Marty Gutzler (father), 49, Kimberly Gutzler (mother), 45, Piper Gutzler
(daughter), 9, and Sierra Wilder, 14 (Piper’s cousin). They are all
from Nashville, Ill.
Extended family request that the surviving child’s name not be released.
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