A jogger who spent 17 days lost and injured in a dense jungle on the Hawaiian island of Maui — where she survived by eating wild fruits and even a few moths she was able to catch — has been rescued.
Amanda Eller, 35, a yoga instructor and physical therapist, was spotted Friday by a helicopter crew that had been searching for her for days.
“There were times of total fear and loss and wanting to give up, and it did come down to life and death, and I had to choose,” Eller told ABC from her hospital bed. “I chose life.”
After last being seen on May 8, Eller’s white Toyota RAV4 had been found at a trailhead with the key hidden under the driver’s side front tire and her phone and wallet left inside.
Her mother Julia Eller said that after her daughter had jogged three or four miles on the trail, she laid down on a log to rest, and when she got up, was completely disoriented.
She had intended to go on a three-mile run but somehow got turned around.
Eller told her father she was able to walk for the first five to eight days but at some point, she fell into a ravine, which was about seven miles from where she left her car.
Besides breaking her leg, she had bruised both ankles and suffered severe sunburn.
“Just like we’ve been saying — you get turned around in these woods,” Javier Cantellops said.
“You get lost, you’re gone,” he said.
“It was straight out of a movie.”
Barefoot and suffering a broken leg, Eller was spotted after she heard the chopper and frantically waved to the crew.
“We’ve been flying almost two hours, which is our fuel limit. We were on our way back, flying over the streams, and there she was, waving her arms at us from down below,” Chris Berquist, who led the air search, told reporters.
“There was no mistake it was her. Even from 200 feet, we knew.”
Cantellops, a former Airborne Ranger who was also in the aircraft, recalled the emotional moment the crew spotted Eller down below.
“We all look to our right … and out of the woodwork, man, you see Amanda Eller, my friend, coming out, waving her hands,” he said.
“It was unbelievable, dude. And, of course, we all lose it.”