An American woman sucked rainwater from her hair for five days to keep herself alive after crashing her car in the Rocky Mountains.
In a story that has made headlines around the world, Cynthia Blair-Hoover was knocked out after she swerved to avoid a deer, leaving a road in Colorado
and rolling 120m down a cliff.
When she woke, her car was on its roof.
She was virtually immobile, wearing just a pair of shorts and a blouse and facing rain, snow and wild animals. She had broken 11 ribs, several vertebrae and suffered a punctured lung.
Just 400m away was the opening to an old gold mine in the side of a hill. It took her five days to crawl to it and cry for help, armed with a golf club to deal with the threat of mountain lions and bears.
Tourists at the mine said they found Ms Blair-Hoover with her "mouth full of dirt".
She told them she had stayed alive by sucking water from her own hair.
"She had a heck of a will to live," local fire chief Gary Allen told SkyNews.
"She used up three or four miracles.
"We have mountain lions, bears and other critters up here. It is a miracle she wasn't mauled to death."
Ms Blair-Hoover is in a hospital in Colorado.
She said she kept herself alive by thinking about her children and grandchildren.
Her sister Rhonda Adams told the Denver Post: "She was scared that something was going to get her. Can you imagine being alone for five days, talking to yourself?"
- Agencies
