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An experienced hiker is lucky to be alive after falling several hundred feet down a mountain in upstate New York. Hope Llyod was approaching the peak of South Dix Mountain, which is part of the Adoriandaks, around 5:30 p.m. on December 26 when she lost her balance and started to fall.
Llyod was hiking alone at the time.
She slid several hundred feet down the mountain but was stopped by a small spruce. The tree prevented her from falling over another vertical cliff.
"That's the only thing that saved me," Lloyd told the Associated Press in a phone interview on Wednesday (January 3). "If I was a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right, I wouldn't be here right now."
Lloyd was able to call for help and waited for rescuers to arrive. She wrapped herself in an emergency blanket and tried to move in place to stay warm and dry as the temperatures dropped into the low 30s and heavy rain began to fall.
"It's basically what we call hypothermia weather: wet, cold, just the mix of those things. It's a bad combo," Ranger Jamison Martin said in a video released by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Lloyd spent eight hours trapped on the mountain until a rescue crew was able to find her. They gave her warm food and liquids and a change of dry clothes. Then, they began a five-hour journey back to her vehicle.
Luckily, Lloyd suffered only a few scrapes and bruises in the fall.
"I feel extremely grateful. Extremely grateful," she said. "I just want to hug everybody."