Search continues for man whose car plummeted off road in San Gabriel Mountains during recent storms

SAN GABRIEL MOUNTAINS, Calif. (KABC) -- Nearly two weeks after a Bell Gardens man went missing in the San Gabriel Mountains, the family of 31-year-old Fernando Nieto is holding onto hope that he'll be found alive.

Nieto's vehicle was found wrecked, about 200 feet down the steep hillside below Glendora Ridge Road about five miles west of Mount Baldy. But there's been no sign of Nieto.

"If anybody can survive out here, it's Fernando," said Alex Aguirre, the missing man's brother. "When he didn't come back (that night), we were like 'something is wrong', it's not like him to be so many days away from the house."

Aguirre said Nieto left home on Feb. 12 to spend some time in the mountains, but never returned home.

"He left my house around 10:30 a.m., and he said he was going to the mountains to meditate for a couple days," said Aguirre, who added that it wasn't unusual for Nieto to want to get away for a while.

"Yeah, he would do that; he had done it the week before, so he was used to doing stuff like that."

According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the vehicle was found more than a week after Nieto ventured into the mountains, after a powerful winter storm brought several inches of rain to the area.

Glendora Ridge Road is currently closed to the public as large swaths of the road are covered in rockslides.

But Nieto's family said they have reason to believe he was able to escape from his vehicle safely.

"According to the sheriff's department, there was no blood in the car; the whole shell of the car survived," said Aguirre. "So, they say he could have survived in there; it doesn't look like he was thrown out of the car."

Aguirre said that search and rescue officials told him that Nieto could still be in the rugged terrain of the San Gabriel mountains, much of the area in the Bridge Fire burn scar. It's also possible that he managed to walk down one of the roads into San Dimas, Azusa or Upland.

"I'm very optimistic that he might have come down Mount Baldy Road, and he's somewhere (in Upland)," said Aguirre. "He might have hit his head and got a concussion; we don't know what happened."

The family filed a missing person's report with the Upland Police Department, as well as with the Bell Gardens Police Department. The San Dimas station of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department is leading the search.

Nieto is approximately 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighs 165 pounds. He has brown eyes and black hair. Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to call the Bell Gardens Police Department at (562) 806-7600.