{"id":36240,"date":"2015-09-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/goldenicons.com\/index.php\/2015\/09\/06\/62-year-old-hiker-releases-letter-from-hospital-bed-on-how-she-survived-9-days-being-lost-in-the-sierra-nevada\/"},"modified":"2015-09-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-09-06T00:00:00","slug":"62-year-old-hiker-releases-letter-from-hospital-bed-on-how-she-survived-9-days-being-lost-in-the-sierra-nevada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goldenicons.com\/62-year-old-hiker-releases-letter-from-hospital-bed-on-how-she-survived-9-days-being-lost-in-the-sierra-nevada\/","title":{"rendered":"62-year-old Hiker Releases Letter from Hospital Bed on How She Survived 9 Days Being Lost in the Sierra Nevada"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AP_MHarwood1_MEM_150902_16x9_992\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The 62-year-old hiker<\/strong> who was recently rescued after she was lost for nine days with broken legs in California’s Sierra Nevada<\/strong> has released a letter from her hospital bed with new details about her miraculous survival.<\/p>\n

Hiker Miyuki Harwood wrote the one-page letter while recovering in a hospital, saying that she regretted leaving her group of backpackers and that she shouldn’t have attempted to return to her base camp alone as it was getting dark on Aug. 20.<\/p>\n

“It was getting dark,” she wrote. “I tried to get back to the campsite but fell off the cliff. I landed on both legs.”<\/p>\n

As a result of the fall, she broke her left leg, right ankle and suffered a compression in her back.<\/p>\n

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“I realized that I could not stand up on either leg,” Harwood wrote. “I spent every day colder and colder and would lie in the sun a few hours each day.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A dozen different search-and-rescue teams scoured the mountains, along with helicopters and drones — all of which Harwood said she could hear.<\/p>\n

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“I kept blowing my whistle and answered their calls,” she said, but her whistles went unanswered for nine days until this past Saturday, when a crew finally found her injured but alive.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The 62-year-old hiker is still in the hospital, where she has undergone one surgery and expects more on a long road of recovery. But she said she’s grateful for the rescuers “who found me and had not given up hope.”<\/p>\n

Harwood is a widow of 10 years and very independent, her sister-in-law, Barb Hartwig, recently said of her. In June, Harwood hiked the Grand Canyon alone, her sister-in-law added.<\/p>\n

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“She does not like to be in the limelight,” Hartwig said. “She just wants to concentrate on getting better and healing up.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n