Woman lost for 17 days in forests of Maui after three-mile hike turns into horrific nightmare
A woman lost for 17 days in the forests of Maui after a three-mile hike really suffered the stuff of nightmares.
Many of us see hiking as a hobby and a way to clear the head for whatever may be going on in our lives.
However, these hikes usually last a few hours, and not the 17 days Amanda Eller spent on one of hers.
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When she set off in May 2019, Amanda did not take a cell phone, food, or water, as she only planned to be out for a short jaunt.
But her supposed short walk was anything but, as Amanda was unable to find her way back after venturing off trail big time.
The physical therapist and yoga instructor lost her way in the Makawao Forest Reserve on the northern side of Maui on 8 May.
The tree-mile hike had ultimately turned into a two-week fight for her life.
The popular reserve is more than 2,000 acres - meaning it is not exactly the hardest to get lost.
On top of that, it is surrounded by more acres of dense forest full of steep ravines and lava rocks - meaning a lot of hazards are in the way too.
Amanda went off path for a short rest, but when she resumed hiking, this is when it all went wrong.
"I wanted to go back the way I’d come, but my gut was leading me another way — and I have a very strong gut instinct," she told the New York Times.
"I heard this voice that said, 'If you want to live, keep going',” she added.
“And as soon as I would doubt my intuition and try to go another way than where it was telling me, something would stop me, a branch would fall on me, I’d stub my toe, or I’d trip. So I was like, 'O.K., there is only one way to go'.”
But during the 17 days Amanda was missing, she certainly went through hell and back.
Due to extreme conditions she suffered severe sunburn, while she fractured her leg and teared the meniscus in her knee after falling off a steep cliff.
“I was getting so skinny that I was really starting to doubt if I could survive,” Amanda added.
Amanda was near a stream on day 17 searching for “some plant to eat for dinner and some place to sleep that wasn’t directly in the mud” when she saw a helicopter.
Thankfully, she was rescued, malnourished and dirty, but vitally, alive.
Callum Jones