HONOLULU (AP) – A Hawaii woman said Tuesday she fell to the ground and started bawling when a rescue helicopter spotted her in a forest where she had survived for two weeks by eating plants and drinking stream water.
Amanda Eller said crews in other helicopters failed to see her earlier in her ordeal.
“I knew in the grand scheme of things, I’m on this tiny piece of rock on the top of a waterfall, and how the heck are they going to find me?” Eller said at a news conference livestreamed from Maui. “It was a miracle.”
The same group of volunteers who found her on Friday were helping search another forest for a Maui man, Noah Mina, who has been missing since May 20.
Eller had set out May 8 for a 3-mile (5-kilometer) hike in Makawao Forest Reserve. She didn’t take a cellphone and didn’t have a compass.