WESTFALL TOWNSHIP, PA - A 24-year-old Milford, PA woman is lucky to be alive, according to her mother, Denise Griffin-Becker.

Griffin-Becker said her daughter was sore, bruised, and very shaken up after rolling down a Route 84 embankment in the bitter cold of Friday evening, January 19th.

Griffin-Becker’s daughter, Samantha Becker, had been traveling between her Westfall job and home on January 19th when she slid on black ice at about 11:00 P.M. The temperature was in the teens, and it was wet and snowy, as Becker’s 2020 Ford Fusion, lovingly referenced as “Smokey”, slid along a guardrail, went through a non-railed section, down a grassy embankment, over a barrier fence, and landed in a water-filled drainage ditch.  It was pitch dark, remote, and her car non-visible from the road.

“Sammy was knocked unconscious at first. We’re sure Smokey helped save her life. Besides being a very sturdy car, its airbags deployed all around her and it called for help,” said Griffin Becker.  

Samantha recalled feeling cold water coming into the car and the car talking as she woke up. Injured and wet, and with only her car’s headlights and tail lights breaking the dark, Samantha crawled out of her car, up the incline, and curled up in a ball near the shoulder of the road.  

“There was no one there at that time,” Griffin-Becker said. “Samantha did have her cell phone and was able to call her boyfriend, who also called 9-1-1.”

A truck driver that had been behind Samantha’s car, but unable to safely stop, had also called 9-1-1.  

Westfall Fire Department ambulance and firefighter crews, followed by Pennsylvania State Police responders, quickly arrived. Samantha was transported to Bon Secours Hospital, treated for a fractured rib, and released to recover at home.

“There are no words, only gratitude, to Smokey’s safety features and being well built, and to the first responders. They saved Samantha’s life on Friday night,” said Denise Griffin-Becker.