SAN FRANCISCO: Rescuers in California found a hiker who had been missing for nine days and survived by filtering water from a creek, authorities said.
The 62-year-old woman, Miyuki Harwood, from the California town of Orangevale, was found Saturday after she went missing during a hiking trip on August 20 in remote Fresno County.
Teams of search and rescue workers had spent days scouring the area and their work was hampered by smoke from wildfires blazing in the region, Sheriff Margaret Mims told a news conference. “They found her in a very remote area in the Sierra Nevada mountains on a very rocky location,” Mims said. Harwood had some broken bones and was taken to the hospital and was expected to recover. California Highway Patrol officer Rusty Hotchkiss said Harwood had only planned on hiking for the day and didn’t have any food.
“She basically crawled from where she was injured down to a creek,” Hotchkiss told CNN. “It took her about two days to do that. And then she was able to drink from the creek with the water filter to stay alive.”–AFP