MEDFORD, Ore. — Three times, cars sped by Chris Palmer as the boy stood Sunday on an isolated stretch of highway, waving for somebody to help him rescue his injured father and sister from the wreckage of their small plane.
Nobody stopped, forcing him to retrace his steps — guided by his family's voices — back to a remote forest clearing as darkness fell.
But a motorist who passed him by called 911. The information helped rescuers, spurred into action by an emergency locator signal from the aircraft, to locate the trio a few hours later.
"He is only 11 years old, but as far as I'm concerned, he has the heart of a lion," said his mother, Patti Palmer, as she sat with her son at a Medford hospital Tuesday.
Chris' father, John Kenneth Palmer, a 47-year-old financial planner from San Jose, Calif., and his 13-year-old daughter, Stephani, were both in fair condition.
The father and his two children were traveling to Medford from Los Banos, Calif., when the engine of their small plane cut out over the rugged Cascade Range at the California border.
Chris, whose mother had stayed behind in California, helped his dad spot a clearing because they didn't have enough altitude to reach a little airfield they could see in the distance.
Ken Palmer managed to glide the single-engine Piper to a crash landing between two trees that ripped the wings off before the fuselage ground to a halt in the mud, ending up on its side. He then managed to kick out the windshield and helped his son get the boy's sister out of the wreckage.
Some bones in Stephani's lower back had been cracked and she couldn't walk. Palmer was bleeding from facial cuts and fading in and out of consciousness from a severely bruised chest.
Meanwhile, search and rescue teams had mobilized to look for the plane after Seattle's air traffic control center reported an emergency locator transmitter signal was coming from the area.
The driver of one of the cars that passed Chris called 911 to report that a child had tried to flag them down, and the dispatcher figured it might be related to the crash, said state police Sgt. Ralph Nelson.
Hours later, the trio was rescued.
"I have no doubt about the Lord's hand on my family," said Patti Palmer.
Chris said he didn't feel like a hero, and credited his father's pilot skills for saving their lives.
The crash has not discouraged the boy from getting his own pilot's license.
"That's just the way things happen sometimes," he said.