Real Survival Stories - Lost in the Forest: Two Weeks Off-Trail

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

In Hawaii, a yoga instructor pays a visit to her local forest reserve. Amanda Eller intends to take a short hike in nature to blow off some steam. It becomes a mind-bending, multi-day journey, as she stumbles off the path and into the trees. Penned in by the dense foliage, with the days blurring into one, Amanda must adapt to survive… A Noiser production, written by Chris McDonald. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's 1 a.m. on Thursday, May the 9th, 2019. A pale moon hangs over the Hawaiian island of Maui. The ferns and palm fronds of Makawa forest are bathed in an ethereal silver glow. But for Amanda Eller, a young woman stumbling through this vast tropical woodland, the beauty doesn't register. She's tired and cold, lost and alone. Leaves rustle in the breeze. Animals scurry unseen in the undergrowth. From high up in the canopy comes the distinctive shriek of a barn owl.

As Amanda struggles through the thick vegetation, sharp thorns claw at her skin. Eventually, exhaustion overwhelms her. I decided I don't care what my body feels like right now. I just have to stop and sleep or something. Eventually, exhaustion overwhelms her. I decided I don't care what my body feels like right now. I just have to stop and sleep or something. I'm dehydrated. I hadn't drank water all day, and I had probably hiked at least 10 miles.

Amanda curls up on the ground. The forest floor is wet and muddy, but she does her best to make herself comfortable. She gathers some leaves and creates a makeshift mattress. Then she layers more leaves on top of herself to serve as a blanket. Dressed only in a tank top and calf-length yoga pants, she has scant defense against the plummeting temperatures. Then it starts to rain because prayer was the one thing, and I'm not religious, mind you. I do believe in the source that created me and the wisdom within me, but I don't subscribe to any one particular religion.

But I think there's truth in all of them. And prayer became my lifeline. At first light, she'll get back to the task of locating her car, which is parked somewhere on the edge of the forest. But for now, she closes her eyes and tries to get some sleep. And escape from her waking nightmare. Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary

situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet 35-year-old yoga instructor Amanda Eller. Faced with a mind-numbing day of admin, she hopes that a quick blast of nature will get her into the right mindset. Little does she know that her trip into the Makawa Forest Reserve will become a two-week torment. Drawn deeper into the wilderness,

Amanda will be pushed to the very limits of her physical and mental capabilities. It's like the fear wanted to take over and I wanted to question, why is this happening to me? Of course the thought's going through my head of I'm never going to find my way out, I'm going to die out here alone. Surrounded by impenetrable trees, Amanda will try to make peace with her fate. And yet something inside her will refuse to let go. I'm John Hopkins. From Noisa, this is Real Survival Stories. It's around 10 a.m. on May the 8th, 2019, in the town of Haiku on Maui. Amanda climbs into her car.

She's just completed the final item on her to-do list, posting a Mother's Day gift back home to Maryland. Although after nearly four years living here, Maui is really her home now. The second largest landmass in the Hawaiian archipelago, just north of the Big Island, Maui is a little corner of paradise. For Amanda, it's a refuge to which she's escaped after a painful breakup. She set herself up here as a yoga instructor and personal trainer.

Today, she's got a pile of paperwork to get through. But the thought of returning to a desk covered with business invoices and bills doesn't appeal one bit. She closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths, preparing, as is her habit, to check in with her inner guide. It's a meditative practice she's learnt

since arriving in the Aloha state. I ask myself questions a lot and I do that on purpose to go beyond the mind. It operates out of fear to keep the being safe a lot of the time and I want what's deeper than that. I want what my soul wants. Today her guide comes back loud and clear. Nature. Specifically, the Makauau Forest Reserve, just a few miles drive from Haiku. She turns the key in the ignition, already feeling somewhat better. After popping home to grab a few things, suburbia quickly recedes in the rearview mirror.

Upcountry Maui rolls out ahead of her, undulating farmland, and beyond that, the vast expanse of the forest. As she gains altitude, the sense of freedom builds. Arriving at the reserve, she pulls into the parking lot and finds a space. Before she gets out of the car, she glances at her bag. I brought everything in my backpack, like rain jackets, long sleeve shirt, journal, snack, water, phone, headlamp. I mean, just all of these things in case of an emergency because I typically didn't

go hiking alone. The sky is blue and cloudless. There's barely a breath of wind. Perfect day to be outdoors. Amanda has been trying to get in shape for a while so she decides to turn her hike into a spontaneous trail run. She leaves her bag, water, and phone in the car. She knows the routes well enough, and she doesn't want anything impeding her movement. Besides, she's not going to be out for long. She locks her vehicle, hides the key behind the back wheel, and sets off towards the treeline. Makawao is stunningly beautiful. 2,093 acres full of spectacular indigenous flora.

The main trails are fringed by towering eucalyptus trees and flowering ginger plants. The park features plunging valleys, gorges, and waterfalls. From elevated vantage points, the views of the pristine beaches and turquoise waters to the north are unparalleled. All in all, a good place for the soul. However, Amanda hasn't gone very far when something feels amiss. The trails are harder to navigate than she expected. Nor does she feel quite right in herself. It was interesting that within the first 10 steps or so of that run, my body felt like lead.

And I thought to myself, okay, do I need to go back and get my water? And the prideful part of me was like, no, no, I'll be fine. I mean, it's just three miles. I can hang in there. So I pushed forward and then I'm running down the trail. And there were a lot of down eucalyptus trees, which are really huge trees. And they were across the trail. So I'm having to go under them, over them, around them.

And I'm staying on the trail. And long story short, I ended up, I thought I was on the main trail. I was obviously on like a side trail. Unaware of her mistake, for now, Amanda strides onwards. The muddy ground is at least gentle on her joints. The minty, medicinal smell of eucalyptus fills her nostrils. But after a while, the way narrows even more.

Amanda pauses to catch her breath and looks around. No sign of the main trail. And I became disoriented. I took a break. I sat down. I'm watching the clouds go by, closing my eyes, just breathing. And I got up about 20 minutes later and went back the way I had come. And I just could not find my way back to my car. I mean, it was the most bizarre thing, especially that first time of like, okay, it's definitely this way. And all of a sudden, it wasn't. It ended abruptly looking down into a gulch, which is like a ravine. And so I turned around and I kind of looked around. I was like, okay, maybe I just veered off a little bit. I'm going to go that way. So the next two, two plus hours were spent with me trying all of the different potential paths in the direction back to my car. But whichever path she follows, they all just seem to lead deeper into the forest.

And it was a process of elimination, and it's as if the trail disappeared. It just wasn't there anymore. I went back to the tree where I had sat and took a break and then started again and started again, and nothing was leading me back to the trail. And it was one of those very disorienting moments where you're like, how could this be? By mid-afternoon, Amanda is no closer to finding a way out.

So after a couple hours, I started to get really fearful and panicky, and I kind of kneeled in the forest and said a prayer and was like, please just get me back to my car. This is not funny. I don't know what this is meant to teach me. And I had a really strong gut reaction of that way. And it was a different way than what I had tried. And I was like, okay, I'm just going to start walking that way and see. So I started walking that way and everything in my body relaxed. I could breathe normally. My mind went to stillness.

And I was like, that's very bizarre. She looks at the wild vegetation up ahead. The mosses, vines, and giant ferns all suggest she's heading further into the rainforest. Surely this can't be the way back to the parking lot. She stops still. And yet, on another level, it feels like the right way to go. Perhaps it'll lead to an access road or a more substantial path. She decides against it. She goes to turn back, which is when something strange happens. So I took five steps. I felt it was silly.

I turned around to go against what I was feeling in my body was the right way. And it literally felt like a sword went straight through my body on the left side. And I doubled over in pain. I had never experienced something so visceral in my life. And I just was in tears because I just was so confused about what was happening. The sudden shooting pain. She suffered no obvious physical injury.

Could it be a product of stress, suppressed fear, or something else? Whatever it is, it's uncanny. Every time I just went against what I was feeling was the right way within my body, I would have pain. So either it felt like I was frozen in place, or I would have like a sharp stomach pain, or I would get really nauseous, or I would start to feel dizzy. So she decides to trust her initial hunch, retaking the path and plunging through the wild vegetation. The trees seem to bunch together as the daylight fades. Sharp ferns snag her skin. Thin ribbons of blood drip from her arms and legs. Soon the sun drops below the horizon, staining the sky a vivid pink.

She carries on for a few more miles, praying that she'll suddenly emerge onto a substantial trail. But she doesn't. At around 1am, Amanda decides to bed down for the night. She meditates again. That connection is what helped to steady me. Of course, the thoughts going through my head of, I'm never going to find my way out. I'm going to die out here alone. Some wild animal's going to eat me. They were all there for sure. But the prayer would steady that stuff and bring me back into a state where I could at least close my eyes

and feel safe for the evening. Amanda's thoughts turn to her boyfriend, Benjamin. He would have been expecting her home. He'll be worried sick. Maybe he's already alerted the authorities. There could be a search party out looking for her right now. She closes her eyes. Perhaps her luck will change in the morning.

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of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com. As dawn breaks on day two, Amanda wakes to the chatter of birds. Threads of soft light filter through a thick canopy. But as her eyes adjust, what she sees is a far cry from what she remembers of last night. I stood up and there was a stream, small stream. And then on the other side of that stream, it looked like somebody's lawn, like a manicured lawn. And it's almost like I could see a house. And I thought, wow, I slept right in somebody's backyard.

That's hysterical. She can't believe it. How could she have missed this property, even at night? She gets up and walks to the stream, drinking the fresh water from her cupped hands. Refreshed, she sets off in the direction that what she assumes must be the house. And I get about 30 feet, I would say, away from the lawn

and it all changes in front of my eyes. So it was as, I mean, they describe mirages. That's the closest thing that I could call this is a mirage where it was there. I mean, they describe mirages. That's the closest thing that I could call this is a mirage where it was there. I was seeing it perfectly clear. I had never had an issue with my vision before and it just disappeared. It transformed. And now that lawn with the house was all ferns.

This vision or hallucination, whatever it is, induces a wave of panic. It was the intense fear of, I'm going to die out here alone. This isn't funny. I might not ever see Benjamin again. I might not see my family again. Amanda works hard to bring her breathing under control. And then she assesses her options.

She's on a narrow, minor path. The logical thing, the only thing to do, is to follow it to its end. It leads up to a rocky incline. At the bottom, she surveys the sharp elevation and the loose stones that line the way. But if she can get to the top, she might be able to properly get her bearings. Summoning her strength, she begins the climb. But there is no clear view to be had. So she picks another incline and starts again. Amanda spends the whole day ascending and descending energy-sapping slopes. Finally, just as dusk approaches, she spies something.

On one of the hilltops there is what looks like a picnic table. She thinks she catches sight of some people sitting on its benches. And could that flash of color be a dog? Amanda scrambles up the slope. and could that flash of color be a dog? Amanda scrambles up the slope, but there's no picnic table and no people to be found. Another mirage. At the top, there were all these ferns.

It was just walls of ferns. All day, I had been doing my best to just like avoid the pain as much as possible because they were quite thorny and they would dig into your skin and kind of gash things open. But because I saw the picnic table and because I saw the people and it just seemed like my way out, I probably ran through, I don't know, at least a hundred yards of thorns. And then when I got about 30 feet away from the picnic table, it completely disappeared once again. Under moonlight, Amanda constructs another bed of foliage.

In the middle of the night, she wakes, needing the toilet. She gets up and takes a few steps to the side. But the ground beneath her feels strangely unstable she backs away and retreats to her little den it's only at daybreak that she sees just how close she has come to disaster when the sign came up i realized i was sleeping on a cliffside and that if i had taken maybe a step or two more i would have fallen probably two to three hundred feet straight down when I woke up and then it was bright enough I got off of that mountain there was a lot of fear that came in day three I would say that was a

turning point of like I'm really lost this could be really bad and I might not find my way out of here. The sun climbs high in the sky and the temperature rockets. Heat stroke is a constant threat. Amanda hasn't eaten in over 48 hours and has had no water since those gulps from the stream yesterday. Her priorities shift from finding a way out to simply staying alive. Later, she stumbles past some tall trees with distinctive red bark and elliptical leaves. She tears the red fruit from their branches, each around the size of a ping-pong ball. She pops one in her mouth, and an explosion of flavor washes over her tongue.

It's strawberry guava. Delicious, and a source of much-needed hydration. As she is eating, she hears a distinctive noise approaching. Not from within the forest, but over it. A helicopter. They must be looking for her after all. But the thick canopy of leaves prevents her from spotting the chopper. And if she can't see them, then they can't see her. She needs to find a part of the forest that isn't dominated by trees.

But as the chopper loops away, and with the evening already upon her, that'll have to be tomorrow's task. It's midday on May the 11th, day four in Makawa Forest. Amanda stumbles into a wide-open clearing, the kind of place where she might just be spotted from the air. But she's in a bad way. She's getting by on a meagre supply of strawberry guavas and wild raspberries. She's even resorted to eating a couple of moths that landed on her. Under the intense heat, she has collapsed three times today already. Thankfully there are tall ferns at the perimeter of this clearing. She can hide under them for shade

but as soon as she has regained some energy she ventures back into the exposed middle it seems her only chance of rescue i found this dead tree that was probably about 15 20 feet tall and i climbed up the stump and just hoped that it would hold me without crumbling and was kind of waiting there like if a helicopter's gonna pass by this open field they're gonna see me up here because this is the tallest structure her ears prick up the faint hum of propellers on the wind again A moment later, a dark dot appears against the cloudless sky Amanda pulls off her t-shirt and waves it Has the pilot seen her?

The helicopter comes closer She can see passengers inside, peering out But no one turns her way She waves her tattered shirt faster, screaming But it's no use The helicopter disappears over the trees No one turns her way. She waves her tattered shirt faster, screaming. But it's no use. The helicopter disappears over the trees. I just felt so defeated.

I just didn't understand how this could be happening. And hindsight, I think it was a Tor helicopter. They weren't looking for a human out there. You know, it's like if you're not looking for it, you may not see it. But that was pretty devastating. It's now late afternoon on day four. Amanda is foraging for ferns to make up a bed, a ritual that's become grimly routine. But as she rummages in the undergrowth, she hears something that restores her spirits. Amanda follows the sound, pushing through the long grass and thick vines. She emerges on the bank of a fast-flowing river.

The water cascades over a cliff edge, forming a 20-foot waterfall. Peering over the precipice, she sees a perfect place of refuge, an oasis, a calm plunge pool surrounded by a soft, mossy verge. It's a long way down, but she might not find a better place to rest and recover. She starts the descent. I was lowering myself backwards down this cliffside. It was a steady slope, so it's like if you go down backwards on your belly, you're good. You just kind of hold on one little grip at a time, lowering yourself down, holding onto the plant material. With her toes, she searches for cracks in the wall of rock below.

But then, a few meters down, she sticks her feet out and finds nothing but air. The cliffside, it took a sharp turn inwards. So before I could even recognize it, my feet are lowering myself down and then they're just hanging in the air. And the ferns that i was holding on to ripped out and just dropped me amanda falls 15 feet she lands upright in the pool of water but it's shallow and she hits it with her knees locked. Her left leg smashes straight into some rocks hidden beneath the surface. Pain rolls up her side.

So I figured I had shredded my meniscus and ligaments within my left knee. And then I looked down. It was significant pain. The whole thing is ballooned out. I dragged myself out of the cold water and over to the side, and I was just crying and screaming and cursing. And then for sure I thought I was a goner, that I was going to die out there alone. She's right about the cartilage and ligament damage,

but she's also broken her leg. Amanda spends the rest of the evening with her knee submerged, hoping the water will help the swelling. She's trapped at the bottom of the waterfall, freezing cold. She's famished, and the skin on her legs has been ripped to shreds by days of pushing through spiky ferns. Somehow, though, she manages to find her calm. I had tucked myself back away from the stream where it was a little bit warmer. Trying to sleep, that was not really happening, but at least closing my eyes

and bringing myself into a calm state. So it was a big battle between my faith and my fear, my mind and my heart, really. Sleep eludes her. And during the night, things take a turn for the surreal. And as I'm sitting there, I look up and there's this ghost. There's this spirit, clear as day with my two physical eyes, had never seen that before. So I looked at him and I was startled and then I just felt like it was safe. So I just kind of sat with him and we're both watching the moon and it was just the most bizarre thing.

Whether a product of stress, fatigue, hunger, all three, the visions don't stop there. Other characters seem to emanate from the rocks and trees around her. So one rock was a very kind Asian woman. One rock was a sea turtle. And it was just things were shape-shifting in front of my two physical eyes, and I didn't really understand it. I'm not from Hawaii, but I know very little bits about their history, their connection to the lands, that kind of thing. And one thing that I was aware of is they consider that the rocks are their ancestors, the rocks of Haleakala. And that these, it's kind of like

when you leave your human body, you could take a different form of this land. And even the trees at night, like had personalities and faces. And I wasn't exactly sure what I was seeing, if I was seeing what's there that normally we can't see, or if I was just hallucinating. By the time the sun rises on day five, the visions have gone, but the searing pain in her knee has not. Getting out of the forest on foot is no longer an option. Getting spotted by a helicopter isn't her best hope. Now it's her only hope.

Dragging herself across the rocks in the streambed, she peels off handfuls of thick green moss. Then she spreads them over three enormous boulders. She carefully positions each clump, then limps back onto the bank to check her work. Eventually, each boulder bears a large, mossy letter.

S O S S So I was like, okay, if the helicopter passes by, SOS. SOS. kind of at an angle so that my shirt was seen. I took my shoes off because my shoes at this point were digging into the ankle wound so that was painful and put them on the stream bed as well. So it was any kind of signs of life that I was trying to to make myself seen. All day Amanda stays by the stream keeping her leg elevated waiting for a miracle. Around midday she glances up. The blue skies become a wash of black.

The first drops of rain fall. Before long, it's a deluge. I knew about flash floods in Maui and how they've taken people out before because the surge of the water, it's just you can't fight it, takes out everything in its path. And so the stream bed was widening, and I was scooting further and further away from it. Amanda snatches her drenched shirt from the branch, but leaves her shoes by the stream. Desperate for shelter, she clambers into a nook by the waterfall.

It's cramped and muddy. As the hours pass, water seeps into her burrow until it's nearly a foot and a half deep and threatening to submerge her. Day five pushed me into surrender because the suffering was too great to fight what was happening to me. I just said, you know, screw it. And I'm not going to hold on so tightly anymore. But as the afternoon wears on,

the rain gradually lessens and stops. The water level recedes. 3 a.m. or something, I pulled myself out of that little nook, that little cave, and went out to a dry rock to dry off. And I just felt like this was the borrowed time. I was at that point, this moment was a gift because I had just basically said goodbye to everything and that this was just extra.

This was bonus time. In the morning, Amanda finds that one of her shoes has been washed away. She refocuses on the idea of moving to higher ground. She can barely walk, but she can crawl. I started crab walking and dragging my left leg behind me. And then I found that I could walk in a pike position, which is basically with your hips in the air and you're walking on your hands and your feet. But for me, I was only on three limbs, my two hands and my right leg. And my left

leg was just floating in the air behind me because I couldn't put weight through that leg. I tried and it was significantly painful. So I ended up crawling, dragging myself and walking in a downward dog position sideways upstream to move myself around, which is a heck of a workout, especially when you're depleted and starving. At this point, Amanda has no way of knowing that eight more groundhog days lie in store. Eight more days of dragging herself through streambeds and over grassy verches. For the most part, the sun is out. It's warm enough. At the same time, there's adequate tree cover to shelter from the worst of the heat.

There is abundant drinking water now from the streams and just enough to eat, even if fruit and moths are barely enough to live on. Remarkably, Amanda has adapted. She's managed to achieve some kind of equilibrium. So definitely the next few days, of course, there was frustration and anger and pain and confusion. But each morning I woke up, I was like, today's the day you're going to be rescued. Like this is all over. And maybe that was just my mind kind of, you know, hyping myself up for a good result. But it kept me going.

Right. And so each day I thought that was the day, that that was going to be the result of the day. It became this Q&A, this constant dialogue between myself and my higher wisdom of what do I do to get myself found? It's a very scary experience. And then there were very blissful moments,

just these moments of complete peace, harmony, and bliss that would just hit you and you've never experienced euphoria like that in your life. So it was the full dichotomy of extreme fear and then extreme bliss. The sun rises on May the 22nd, Amanda's 14th day in Makawo Forest. Once more she rises from her makeshift bed and sets off in her now familiar downward dog position. She's lost a lot of weight. Her skin is burnt and peeling, except on her lacerated ankles where it's turned dark and bruised, a sign of infection. All Amanda can do is to keep searching for high, open ground. Making her way slowly down yet another stream bed, she slips, falling face first into the mud.

There was this moment of full tantrum in the stream bed, like F this, I'm over this, I don't trust what's happening, I'm throwing everything away, like I'm sick of listening to this guidance which is leading me nowhere, which has led me into this mess. And I heard very

clearly and calmly, if you want to stay here, you're going to die. And if you keep going, you will live. And so I had this mantra come through of right foot, left foot, I choose life. And so I was like placing my right hands, left hands, I choose life. And then my right foot and my left foot, which was floating in the air. So I was just using this mantra to keep my hands and my feet going and then reminding myself that I'm choosing to stay alive, that this is not a given. And that it was right foot, left foot, I choose life.

But that kept me going. Friday, May the 24th, day 16. Amanda has been repeating her mantra for two days straight, and she has finally made it to an open clearing up a hillside. I found myself at the top of this 70-foot waterfall, and then I stepped back from the edge, and I sat down and I heard very, very clearly, probably the clearest message of my entire time out there, this is where the helicopter's going to pick you up. She's too tired to go on anyway.

She sits there all day at the top of the waterfall. The sky darkens and fills with stars. The next morning, she stays right where she is. Every couple of minutes, she glances up. But there's nothing mechanical in the air, just bird life. It was like right at that point where I looked up and the helicopter was right on top of me. I didn't even hear it coming. Amanda rubs her eyes to make sure it's not another mirage.

But it's still there, hovering 15 or 20 feet above her she locks eyes with the pilot who signals that he's looping around to find some way to land there was so much emotion pulsing through my body it's like nothing could actually come forward I couldn't cry but there was this like weird, like release happening from my lungs and you know, my breath, it almost was like,

I was like hyperventilating a little bit. Moments later, three men burst through the trees. Amanda collapses in their arms. While they wait for the helicopter to circle back, they fill her in on what's been happening in the outside world. Her disappearance has become a major news story. A GoFundMe campaign has raised $77,000, enough to finance numerous helicopter passes.

1,000 volunteers have been combing the forest, but they've mostly been searching an area much closer to Amanda's parked car. Despite the remarkable mobilization of resources, it's a stroke of luck that they've come across her at all. And the only reason they found me at that spot is because they were planning on repelling waterfalls the next day to see if they could find my body in the pools at the bottom they were just looking for a body at this point because

they figured there's no way she's still alive 17 days into it the helicopter comes back around amanda looks up to see a winch being lowered with a seat at the bottom her saviors clip her in. They give the signal and she's lifted skywards. It doesn't take long to get back to civilization. Stumbling around in circles, Amanda covered around 40 miles on foot, much of it with a broken leg. But as the crow flies, she was only ever a maximum of seven miles from her car. As I'm flying away in the helicopter, I looked back. I didn't want to look back, but I looked back at that little shred of nature where I was. And within, I don't know, 0.3 seconds, it disappeared. Like it was completely gone.

Amanda is taken to hospital, where her family are waiting, as is her boyfriend Benjamin. Her broken tibia should heal without complication. Her ankles are more of a concern. She has a nasty infection. But after a few days on antibiotics, the threat passes. They took my blood, you know, they did the urine analysis. They basically checked all the parameters to see where my organ function was.

And they said that when all of that came back, they were like, you are like, everything is perfect. You're just low in potassium. In hospital, Amanda is inundated with interview requests from broadcasters. A journalist from the New York Times calls this talk of book deals, television appearances and film rights. Amanda learns that her family made public appeals and offered financial rewards for information. Some suspected she'd been abducted or murdered. It's a lot to take in. To sate the public's appetite and to properly thank her rescuers, she agrees to a press conference.

On May the 28th, just three days after leaving the forest, Amanda sits behind a long table bristling with microphones. She does her best to describe her experience. And I just told the truth. I did my best to describe it in the language that I had at the time. And what I was saying sounded a lot like I was on drugs because of talking about seeing spirits and having visions and, I mean, just moments of euphoria. And the fact that I described like, okay, well, this was the toughest moment.

And then I was in the most bliss I've ever experienced. And people can't typically relate to that. Some just won't accept her story. Gossip and rumors spread online that she staged the whole thing or embezzled money from the donations. The accusations are tough to take. So that really hit hard because I was actually shamed. A lot of people said I put people in danger to search for me and that I was irresponsible by not taking my cell phone on my water. I was irresponsible because I took drugs, which is a lie. It's not true. And so it really kind of turned from this at first for the press conference. It was just like, we found her.

This is amazing. My face was posted all over the island. My family really was asking the community to help and they did. And we had a positive result with a happy ending and it was all good. It was all good. And then here comes the negativity and all the stories. And that really took me down because I was quite in a positive, grateful state of being alive. And I think that the difficulty, the challenges may have been just as hard on the other side of the experience when I had to deal with the humanness and different people coming at me with their own versions of my story. I think that was probably just as challenging as keeping myself alive over the 17 days.

Today, Amanda continues to try to see the upsides, where she can, of her ordeal. For those first initial years afterwards, I was just in confusion and disarray and a lot of darkness of sorting through the trauma. And I've gotten myself to a place of compassion with the whole thing now. All of those tenants that I lived by, all of those tools and practices that got me through those 17 days are now my tools for survival. I don't spend too much time thinking about what could have happened, but I know that that was my guiding force and that it was an experience that really allowed me to utilize, to not just say, okay,

I have faith, I believe in a higher power, but to live by it. In the next episode, we meet Gabe Joyce. He's a teacher and running coach from Wyoming. With an ultramarathon on the horizon and a free day to hit the trails, he seizes the opportunity to get up into the mountains. But when he takes an innocuous stumble, his run takes a deadly turn. After sustaining a bizarre, freak injury, Gabe's life is literally slipping through his fingers.

He'll need to think lightning fast to pull through. That's next time on Real Survival Stories.