Mel Jones, 43, was driving on the Ilford Sofala Road, 60 kilometres north-east of Bathurst, late on Sunday night when her car crashed and rolled into a deep ditch at about midnight.

She called triple zero, however she could not give her exact location and she soon became "uncontactable" when her phone ran out of battery.

The last place she was seen was at a service station in Kelso, just out of Bathurst, about 11pm where she asked for directions to Mudgee.

Inspector Gerard Powell from Chifley Local Area Command said Ms Jones, from Tumut, clearly didn't know the area well.

"It would've been a very scary situation," he said. "It's a main road between Sofala and Ilford. It's a very dark area, there's obviously no street lighting."

Local police, paramedics, the State Emergency Service and Ms Jones' son Steven Kemp launched a search party in the early hours of Monday morning. Her car was so well-concealed from the road they drove past it several times.

It was eventually spotted by a NSW Ambulance helicopter ten and a half hours after the initial call.

Mr Kemp told Nine News he got a phone call that his mother was missing early on Monday morning and "couldn't just sit at home and let it be".

"The SES team and us, we drove past where the car was a couple of times, but because she was so far in the gully, you couldn't see the car," he said. "It's been a rough 12 hours ... the main thing is we found her safe."

A NSW Ambulance spokeswoman said paramedics reached Ms Jones on the ground about 20 minutes after she was spotted by the helicopter.

"The vehicle was sighted about 10.30am. It had rolled over into a ditch between Sofala and Ilford," the spokeswoman said. "We made contact with her at 10.53am.

"She was trapped in the vehicle suffering a suspected fractured leg and abrasion to her shoulder."

It took half an hour to cut her from the crumpled Toyota Corolla, which had come to rest on its left side in the roadside ditch.

She was taken to Liverpool Hospital by Ambulance helicopter.

The hospital said she remained in a critical condition on Monday evening.

The story: Woman critical after being trapped in car for more than 11 hours at Sofala first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald.