5-year-old girl climbs steep cliff to get help after family's SUV veers into 40-foot embankment

ALBERTA, CANADA (WTXF) -- A five-year-old girl is being praised for her heroic efforts after she hiked barefoot up a cliff to get assistance after a car accident in which her family's SUV plunged down a 40-foot embankment. The girl's mother and baby brother were knocked unconscious in the crash.

Angela Shymanski suddenly fell unconscious while driving her kids from Calgary to their home in Prince George, British Columbia in Canada. Their vehicle subsequently ran off the road and into a tree.

Angela's daughter Lexi woke up only suffering a few scratches and saw her mother slumped over unconscious and her baby brother crying.

Lexi's mother had broken her back in the crash and baby brother, Peter, suffered a brain bleed.

Their car was not visible from the road, located near Jasper, Alberta, Canada.

In an incredible show of bravery, Lexi unfastened her five-strap car seat, climbed up the steep, jagged cliff, and flagged down passing drivers.

If Lexi did not make her way up that cliff, Angela's and Peter's injuries could have been much worse or fatal.

However, Daily Mail reports that they are expected to make full recoveries.

Angela spoke to Metro saying, "It's crazy.

"I only can remember one or two times where she got out of her five-point harness previously. She somehow got out, adrenaline or whatever, and barefoot hiked up the embankment.

"It's crazy because the guy who came to see us in the hospital, he said the medics and the firemen needed ropes to get up and down that embankment, and she did it barefoot.

"It was only because she came up and flagged people down that anybody would have stopped."

And coincidentally, the first driver that stopped was a paramedic, who knew from training that Angela could not be moved.

"If they would have jostled me a little bit, I might have been completely paralyzed," Angela said to Metro.

The three were airlifted to an Edmonton hospital. Lexi was treated for minor injuries, Peter for his brain bleed, and Angela required CPR which broke more bones in her already twice-broken back.

She spent 19 days in the hospital and has now returned home to husband Travis. He has left his job temporarily to take care of their kids.

They have launched a GoFundMe for recovery expenses. Angela cannot hold her kids, conduct swimming lessons as a swimming instructor, or manage the family's B&B.

However, the focus remains on little Lexi and her brave actions.

"It's amazing and we're just so glad she did that," Angela said.