Five persons escaped major injury late Sunday morning when the pickup truck in which they were riding plunged over an embankment in McElmo Canyon and landed on its roof on the ground below.

The accident prompted a multi-agency rescue involving the Montezuma County Task Force, Cortez Fire Department, Montezuma County sheriff’s department, Towaoc police, Colorado State Patrol, ambulances from Towaoc and Southwest Memorial Hospital, and several passers-by.

The driver, 32-year-old Sophina Silas of Montezuma Creek, Utah, was taken to Southwest Memorial with multiple contusions and remained there overnight, according to a hospital spokesperson, but was to be released Monday afternoon.

The remaining four persons, all juveniles, were also taken to the hospital with contusions and abrasions but were treated and released Sunday, the spokesperson said.

According to State Patrol Trooper Steve Keller, the pickup truck, a 1994 Ford F-150, was eastbound on County Road G when it came to a sharp, shady curve approximately five miles west of Highway 160. The pickup struck a patch of ice in the shade and spun clockwise.

Silas overcorrected and the tires regained traction briefly, according to Keller, but then the vehicle spun off the left-hand side of the road and went airborne for 80 to 100 feet.

When it struck the bottom of the embankment, it flipped and came to rest on its top, he said.

No one was thrown from the pickup, Keller said. Silas and a 17-year-old girl in the passenger seat were both wearing seat belts, he said, while another 17-year-old girl was riding unbelted in the middle of the seat with a 2-year-old boy in her lap. A 4-year-old girl was sitting on the floorboard, Keller said.

Silas was trapped in the vehicle between the roof and the steering wheel and had to be extricated using the jaws of life, said Mike Ptaszynski, public-relations officer with the Cortez Fire Department. She was placed on a backboard and onto a stokes stretcher.

"We had to rig a rope system to haul it up the hill," he said.

Silas was cited for careless driving causing injury, no proof of insurance, and child abuse because the children were not in car seats, said Keller.

"They were very lucky the kids were not badly injured," he said.

He thanked two couples who stopped and assisted with the rescue effort, helping get the victims out of the vehicle and up the embankment.