A teenager was found alive in her wrecked car after being missing for eight days. Laura Hatch, 17, last seen at a party Oct. 2, was found Sunday in her 1996 Toyota Camry about 150 feet below a road in this suburb east of Seattle, King County sheriff's deputies said.

Hatch was in serious condition in the intensive care unit at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. She was being treated for dehydration, a blood clot on the brain, and broken bones in her face, hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg-Hanson said Monday.

"We were afraid that we weren't going to find her, we weren't going to get her back," Hatch's sister Amy told KING television in Seattle. "This is the best thing that could happen because there were a million awful scenarios."

Hatch evidently went eight days without food or water, sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said, adding that there had been no indication of foul play.

"There was no police search," he added. "We felt she was most likely a runaway." Authorities did release a statewide bulletin and sent advisories to all local police agencies.

Sha Nohr, whose daughter is a friend of Hatch, found the teen Sunday in a wooded area, where 200 volunteers had searched unsuccessfully the day before.

She said she had dreamed about a wooded area and went out to look Sunday with her daughter.

Along the way, Nohr said, she prayed: "I just thought, 'Let her speak out to us.'" She barely managed to discern the wrecked car in some trees after climbing over a concrete barrier and down an embankment.

"I told her that people were looking for her and they loved her," Nohr recalled, "and she said, 'I think I might be late for curfew.' "

Nohr called to her daughter, who flagged down a passing motorist.

More than 100 people cheered and sang at a church prayer service Sunday night that initially had been planned as a vigil.