Female hiker stranded alone up mountain with broken ankle

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Tyc
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Female hiker stranded alone up mountain with broken ankle

Post by Tyc » August 17th, 2012, 1:10 pm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ds-newsxml



I am really scared... but it's no biggie': Video diary of female hiker stranded alone up mountain with broken ankle

Alexandra 'Lexi' De Forest, 21, fell into an eight-foot-deep trench while hiking in Wyoming on August 11
As night fell, her companion rushed to get help and Lexi was left alone
She decided to keep from panicking by making a six-minute video diary
The university student was rescued an hour after being left alone and was air-lifted to hospital

By Laura Pullman

PUBLISHED: 13:10 EST, 17 August 2012 | UPDATED: 15:35 EST, 17 August 2012

A 21-year-old student not only survived a potentially life-threatening injury after snapping her ankle and becoming stranded while hiking on a mountain, but she also produced a hilarious video of her ordeal while waiting to be rescued.

Alexandra 'Lexi' De Forest, of Fort Collins, Colorado, forced herself to stay calm and incredibly focus on comedy while coping with the excruciating pain after falling while hiking in Wyoming last Saturday. Attempting to jump over a large trench the brunette slipped, shattered her ankle and was left stranded on the mountainside unable to move.

As her companion rushed to find help, the Colorado State University senior made the video diary on her phone to distract herself from the horrifying prospect of dying alone in the wilderness. ‘Speaking out loud and my stream-of-consciousness settled me,’ she told FoxNews. 'I was talking about my loved ones and my dog. Anything to keep me from staring at my ankle. It was pretty gross.'

De Forest had earlier set off on a camping trip to Vedauwoo mountain with her friend Erik Henry and they had managed to watch the sun go down from the top of a nearby rock formation. After the sun had set, the pair were marching on to a nearby campsite when they came across a trench eight-feet-deep and six-feet-across.

After Henry successfully leaped across the trench, it was De Forest’s turn. But as she prepared to jump she slipped and fell in. The student admitted to a brief moment of panic when she first saw her detached ankle. ‘I felt blood all over me, my knees and elbows were cut, and my plan immediately was to crawl down the mountain,’ she told FoxNews.

But that plan came unstuck when crawling proved too painful. Henry then tried to carry his injured companion down the mountainside but became too exhausted to carry on. At 8pm, with night quickly setting in, Henry rushed off to find help.

Now left alone De Forest refused to panic and instead began documenting her terrifying ordeal on her phone. The footage starts with a shot of De Forest’s foot completely twisted round with blood running down her trainers.

‘So, this is me. I just broke my ankle. Eww. For the second time now’, she begins the film, ‘like, come on, Lexi, you’d think you’d be better at this by now… this walking thing.’ Trying to forget the excruciating pain and frightening situation, De Forest talks to the camera nonstop for almost seven minutes as she waits to be rescued. ‘This is me moving my foot, and it's really gross. I'd show you more but if I looked at it, I might vomit on myself. And no one wants to see that.

'I don’t know first aid for a foot that is not attached to your ankle so I’m doing the best I can,’ she jokes. But at one point the student admits to just how petrified she is: ‘I am ******* scared. I am really scared. But in, like, the calmest, coolest sense. ‘I’m not going to tell you how scared I am of bears right now,’ she continues, flashing her pearly whites with a laugh.

Referencing her agony only a few times, De Forest desperately focuses on other things, giving shout outs to her friends and family, as well as describing her surroundings. When she spots the lights of her rescuers in the distance she whoops and cheers before reminding herself that ‘optimism is key.’ At one point she even breaks into song – recounting how she can still feel her toes

Continuing to joke and stay positive, she says: ‘I have made a lot of good decisions…was one them probably wasn’t jumping over that trench.’ De Forest was stuck on the mountainside alone for an hour and, as the video ends at 9pm, her rescuers arrive. She was airlifted to the Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland, Colorado and was released on Wednesday night.

Her ordeal echoes the incredible story of ‘127 hours’ hiker Aron Ralston, who was forced to saw off his own arm after it was trapped under a bolder for five days. And, as she recovers from the fall, De Forest can take solace that the inspirational video has won her a legion of online admirers. While many praise her positive attitude, others compliment her beauty – focusing in on her perfect teeth.

‘I think this lady should be endorsing some sort of dentistry product. What perfect teeth!’ one user comments on Gawker. One commentator posted on the Reddit website, ‘Wow, not only a bad ass but super gorgeous’ while another simply writes: ‘10/10. Would marry.’ However, the hiker is currently off the market as she has started dating Henry, her heroic rescuer.

Since she posted the video onto YouTube on Wednesday, it has been seen more than 21,000 times. Beneath the video De Forest writes: 'Just hanging out on top of a mountain. At night. Alone. With a broken ankle. No biggie.' MailOnline has reached out to De Forest for comment.

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mayhem
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Re: Female hiker stranded alone up mountain with broken ankl

Post by mayhem » August 18th, 2012, 1:15 pm

Dude!!! Or Dudette. That was gross to see her foot all broken & twisted backwards. She was trying to distract herself & for good reason. Her voice was totally full of I'm really scared!!

Way to go girl is all I can say!
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hlee
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Re: Female hiker stranded alone up mountain with broken ankl

Post by hlee » August 18th, 2012, 2:05 pm

Haha, I'm glad I didn't try to play that video. No thanks, DNW twisted off ankles.

Also, Her ordeal echoes the incredible story of ‘127 hours’ hiker Aron Ralston, who was forced to saw off his own arm after it was trapped under a bolder for five days. Give me a break. No pun intended. But seriously, no. Just no.

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Re: Female hiker stranded alone up mountain with broken ankl

Post by potato » August 19th, 2012, 5:52 pm

hlee wrote:Also, Her ordeal echoes the incredible story of ‘127 hours’ hiker Aron Ralston, who was forced to saw off his own arm after it was trapped under a bolder for five days. Give me a break. No pun intended. But seriously, no. Just no.
Hahaha. Maybe "echoes" is the appropriate word for it. Like, the 3rd or 4th echo. Broken ankle alone for a few hours with help on its way, vs. stuck and completely alone for days and sawing off your own arm... yeah there's not much of a comparison really. Not to say she didn't go through a hard time.
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