MOSES LAKE, Wash. -- A motorcyclist survived for two days while trapped down a steep embankment following a crash that left him unable to move his legs, reported KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

Brad Beckstrom said a car ran his motorcycle off Frontage Road near Moses Lake and sent him and his bike plummeting 40 feet down a steep embankment.

Seriously injured, Beckstrom spent two days and nights lying in the brush with a shattered shoulder and legs he could not move.

Despite his injuries, the man managed to tie a knot in his red sweatshirt and toss it into a tree, but passing cars still couldn't see it.

When Beckstrom didn't come to work on Monday, his co-workers at Twin City Foods said they knew something was wrong. They organized search parties and called police.

Co-worker Craig Grant later learned he had driven by the spot where Beckstrom was lying injured.

"I was sick to my stomach. I had looked right down that hole and hadn't seen him," said Grant.

On Tuesday, state Trooper Ron Huxtable happened to park and walk down the stretch of road where the crash occurred.

"I saw a red sweatshirt draped up in the branches and heard a voice say, 'Help, somebody help me,'" said Huxtable.

Huxtable said finding Beckstrom alive will be a moment that defines his career.

"He was pretty thankful to see somebody. He told me he thought he was going to die out there," said Huxtable.

Beckstrom is in intensive care at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Friends of the victim said Beckstrom might be paralyzed from the waist down.

The motorcyclist told friends that he saw a car coming at him in his lane and he had nowhere else to go.

Police are investigating the circumstances of the crash.