Car flies off 300-foot Malibu cliff, driver survives

MALIBU, Calif. --  Zane Vargas is thankful to be alive after a car accident Friday evening. Vargas, 29, says he was driving to work in Malibu when he was hit by a car he didn't see coming. He tells CBS Los Angeles his Cadillac sedan was sent off a 300 foot cliff.

"I just remember flying off the cliff and just holding on for dear life," Vargas says.

"It was just airborne all the way down and I just landed, 'boom,"' he says. "The doors were jammed shut. I couldn't get out, all the air bags were deployed."

Zane hit his head on the steering wheel, broke his forearm and dislocated his shoulder.

"I immediately started yelling 'help, help, help me I'm down here,"' Vargas recalls.

The Malibu Search and Rescue team and L.A. County Fire Air Ops arrived to get Zane out of the car and up into the helicopter.

"They wedged open the door, they pulled me out slowly to make sure I wasn't more injured than I was," says Vargas.

He says he felt and saw the helicopter coming down the side of the cliff.

"I could just feel the wind and the debris hitting me and the firefighters protecting my face with their hands," he says.

Vargas says he was flown to a hospital where he was treated and just released, but he needs more surgeries.

Vargas and his wife are now dealing with another blow — the loss of his car.

"That was everything me and my wife had to our name," says Vargas. "That's all we had, which is our vehicle, we are living in it, and out of it."

But the couple is trying to focus on this.

"I fell 300-plus feet and I'm still here and I just look at it as a blessing," Vargas says.

A gofundme page has been set up to help Zane.