The driver saw the bloodied girl on the sidelines. When he came closer, he became speechless …

A five-year-old girl has been hailed a hero for hiking barefoot up a cliff to get help after her mother and baby brother were knocked out in a freak car crash that sent their SUV hurtling down a 40-foot embankment.

Angela Shymanski was driving her children from Calgary to their home in Prince George, British Columbia, when she unexpectedly passed out behind the wheel and veered off the cliff road into a tree in June.

Her daughter Lexi awoke with a few scratches to see her mother slumped unconscious and her brother crying. Angela had broken her back, little Peter had bleeding on the brain, and they could not be seen from the road near Jasper, Alberta, Canada.

Lexi managed to unfasten her five-strap car seat and climb up the steep and rocky embankment to flag down drivers.

If she hadn't gone to get help, Angela and Peter could have died or been left paralyzed for life. But, incredibly, they look set to make a full recovery. 

Angela, a swimming instructor who is still recovering six weeks later, told : '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.' 

Astonishingly, the first driver to stop was a paramedic — who knew not to move Angela.

'If they would have jostled me a little bit, I might have been completely paralyzed,' told Angela.

All three were airlifted to a hospital in Edmonton, where Lexi was treated for minor injuries Peter was treated for a brain injury.

Angela broke her back in two places and required CPR, breaking more bones. 

After a 19-day stint in hospital, she is now back home with husband Travis, who has taken a leave of absence from work to care for the children.  

There is a GoFundMe page to support their recovery, as Angela is unable to hold her children, work as a swimming instructor, or run the family's B&B. 

As they work on trying to make ends meet, they remain astonished by Lexi.

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