By SPA
Panama City,, Panama : The sole survivor of a plane crash that killed two Americans and a Panamanian pilot was awake and talking Wednesday, a doctor said.
Francesca Lewis, 13, apparently fell out of the plane or was ejected on impact, her mother, Valerie Lewis, told CNN on Wednesday.
The girl endured two days in the rugged mountains of Panama, in frigid temperatures and heavy rain, before rescuers stumbled upon her in the wreckage on Christmas Day.
“She’s doing all right,” Valerie Lewis said. “She is having tests done at the hospital right now, and so far things seem good — kind of miraculous.
“The fact that she so far doesn’t seem to have any major damage seems incredible.”
Dr. Alexander Quidano at the Mae Lewis Medical Center in Boquete, Panama, said Francesca was in stable condition, awake and speaking.
She was being treated for a fractured arm and several cuts, but tests, including a CAT scan, were under way to make sure nothing else was wrong, Quidano said.
Francesca apparently was disoriented when her rescuers saw her under a wing of the wrecked plane, her mother said.
She thought she was at home and wondered why an airplane wing was in her house, her mother said.
Rescuers carried the girl on a stretcher for three and a half hours in torrential rain over rugged terrain to a helicopter.
“We’re so relieved to have her with us,” her mother said.
The small plane disappeared Sunday in a mountainous area of Panama.