Hawaii: Rescued Hiker Woman Broke Her Leg, Ate Moths & Wild Fruit To Survive
A 35-year-old Maui woman missing for 17 days was found alive on Friday, just as hopes were starting to dwindle. Amanda Eller, a yoga teacher survived in dense forest, a friend said, by sleeping in a boar’s den, covered in ferns, and eating wild fruit and one occasion two moths. Eller was reported missing on 9 May by her boyfriend, Ben Konkol, when she did not return home for dinner the previous evening. Thousands of volunteers, police, firefighters and search dogs combed thick forest around the trailhead parking lot where her car was found. The search also involved free divers, rapellers, cavers, swift water rescue teams, hunters, cadaver dogs, drones, all-terrain vehicles and helicopters.
“We were beginning to lose hope,” Amanda’s father John Eller said on Friday evening at Maui Memorial Medical Center, where his daughter was brought to recuperate. “When I got the call at first I thought they were joking, I almost just couldn’t believe it. The terrain here is unbelievable. In those woods it’s so easy to get disoriented, to get lost.” Amanda told friends and family that after realizing she was lost she tried to get back to her car. That effort took two days.
“After that, she gave up looking for the car and started looking for water,” said Katie York, a childhood friend who flew in from Maryland to join searchers in the vast forest for more than a week and a half. On the third day, York said, Eller slipped and fell 20ft, breaking her leg and tearing the meniscus in her knee. After that, Eller focused on finding water to drink and food to forage. On day four a flash flood washed away her shoes, leaving her feet bare. “The cold was what she said was the worst,” said York. “She slept in a boar den and covered herself with ferns and anything she could get her hands on. The main thing she wanted was for the rains to hold off so that she wouldn’t be cold and drinking muddy water.”
In the area of north Maui where Eller was found, nighttime temperatures can drop to into the low 60sF (15C), with humidity into the low 80s and frequent rains. She was wearing only a thin white tank top, a sports bra and a pair of yoga pants. For sustenance, Eller drank water from a stream she was following. For food, she ate wild strawberry guavas and, on Friday, two moths that landed on her.
York said: “She said every morning she’d wake up and say, ‘Today’s the day I’m going to get out of this.’ And every night she’d go to bed upset that it hadn’t happened.”
Eller was spotted by searchers in a helicopter around 3.30pm local time, about seven miles “as the crow flies” from the Makawao Forest Reserve trailhead. ..
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/25/woman-found-alive--two-weeks-in-hawaii-forest-park-amanda-eller
The Hawaii forest area where Eller was found.
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Flanked by her rescuers, an emotional Amanda phones her family to let them know she's been found.
is a real challenge. Amanda gets major credit for keeping strong and focused, esp. with that leg- ouch.
She stayed CALM and used her Brain/Intelligence, humans' key advantage.
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These 2 'survivor' films are 1st rate, both set in Alaska wilderness where plane crash victims face dangerous elements.
In 'The Edge,' Anthony Hopkins tells Baldwin that most people lost in those circumstances stop using their brain, and give up *FROM SHAME. As in how did they get themselves into the predicament; I remember and often pass this along.
Never in wilderness, I was lost a couple times when young (and dumb!) at night, in Rio and Paris. After a good amt. of time we made our way home luckily but it was a bit scary esp. Rio.
Response to appalachiablue (Original post)
