Incredible Story of Survival

Julian McCormick was traveling from Bowie, Maryland to College Park, Maryland to pick up his girlfriend on Sept. 1. Eight days later, a motorist spotted him on the side of a highway near where his car had plunged into a ravine 30 feet below the roadway. His story of survival is impressive:

As Julian McCormick recalls it, he lay in and out of consciousness for eight days and seven nights, hot, sticky and bloody with not a clue as to what day it was or how he ended up trapped in his overturned car at the bottom of a steep embankment in Prince George's County.

To survive, he ate a fish he caught with his hands and used his high-top sneaker to drink water from the creek, the 18-year-old Bowie State University student told his parents.

When he finally was able to muster the strength, he cut his seat belt using a small knife he had in his car, forced his door open and then dragged himself by his elbows, his body racked with pain, 30 feet up to the shoulder of the road hoping that someone would see him and rescue him. Someone did.

While McCormick's tale is one of survival, the U.S. Park Police (the highway is the Baltimore Washington Parkway--a U.S. Park route) are now facing some tough questions, including why they only conducted a one and a half hour search at night by helicopter.

Park Police are saying McCormick was not a "priority" missing person.