Posted on 03/23/2017 12:27:38 PM PDT by simpson96
A woman who spent five days stranded in the Grand Canyon described the "true panic" of her harrowing experience in an exclusive interview with ABC News.
"I was panicking and crying and sobbing - I was a mess," said Amber Vanhecke, 24, about the moment she first realized she was lost without GPS or cell reception.
Vanhecke, a college student from Denton, Texas, was sightseeing by herself last week near the southern rim of the Grand Canyon when her GPS instructed her to make a wrong turn, leading her through increasingly tough terrain.
An experienced Girl Scout and outdoor adventurer, Vanhecke had traveled by herself numerous times before and visited other national parks including Yosemite, Yellowstone, Sequoias and Redwoods.
"I planned out my itinerary, had it posted on Facebook and stuff and off I went with some non-perishables and water,"Vanhecke said of the spring break trip she'd been planning since January. She left Denton and spent a day in Carlsbad, New Mexico, before driving the rest of the night to the Grand Canyon.
During her drive, she followed her GPS from a highway to a dirt road. But she eventually came across a more primitive road with grass and cacti.
"The problem was, the road wasn't there," she recalled. Vanhecke said that eventually her GPS stopped working entirely and her car ran out of gas.
Early on after getting lost, Vanhecke was able to briefly get through to a 911 dispatcher but the call dropped.
"And that was the first moment I felt true panic," she said.
(snip)
Around Vanhecke's fourth day in the desert, a truck passed by as she sat off to the side of road in her car.
"I chased them as far as I could," she recalled."[But] they didn't hear me and they didn't see me."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
She began having flashbacks to being lost in Kmart at a young age. However, that was only a 2-day ordeal.
[B. The Movie]
It will be produced by Lifetime and shown on both Lifetime and the Oprah Winfrey Network.
It will be some man that convinced her to do it. He will have put $100,000+ plus life insurance policy on her and drained part of the gas from her tank. He will be advised by Russian hackers, And there will be a gas station that refuses to create a transgender 3rd bathroom. She will be saved by a Prius owner that charged up the car with solar panels.
[B. The Movie]
It will be produced by Lifetime and shown on both Lifetime and the Oprah Winfrey Network.
It will be some man that convinced her to do it. He will have put $100,000+ plus life insurance policy on her and drained part of the gas from her tank. He will be advised by Russian hackers, And there will be a gas station that refuses to create a transgender 3rd bathroom. She will be saved by a Prius owner that charged up the car with solar panels.
“2) If you’re in an area where gas stations are sparse, fill up whenever you pass a gas station and your gauge reads half full or less. “
______________________________________
Both of your comments are excellent advice, but this one piqued my attention because it’s one of pet peeves about my husband....even in the winter, he lets the tank go nearly empty.
I keep telling him, what if you get stuck somewhere and need to keep the engine running for warmth?
I believe a couple of years ago, there was some huge snowstorm in the eastern US and people were stuck on the interstate for a long time.
That’s right, depending on GPS is depending on someone else. Someone who is not there with you. Someone who may have never even set foot in the state you’re in.
LMAO, wait....SRSLY?
XD
It’s almost beyond belief.
Me: "In case I ever have to escape."
Bro: (Silence.)
Whenever there's a major snow coming, I make sure that both cars are full of gas. If the storm knocks out power, the house's heating system will also go out.
She should have stayed in “Denton, the home of happiness.”
Try telling him that letting the gas tank go more than half empty causes the fuel pump to run hotter, which causes premature failure.
To cool and lubricate the internal components, fuel must flow continuously through the fuel pump. Insufficient flow limits cooling and lubrication of the pump. A leading cause of fuel pump failure is running the fuel tank low. This is particularly critical on late model vehicles without a fuel pressure return system. Running such a vehicle out of fuel once can permanently damage the fuel pump.
http://www.agcoauto.com/content/news/p2_articleid/195
Typically a $500 repair.
So was she actually using a handheld GPS or a cellphone with GPS or cell tower GPS? Makes a big difference.
I’m envious!
This isn’t scary. Scary is having to hack your arm off with a pocket knife.
Sheesh. I was thinking of posting a spoof on how we should set up a go fund me sight for this special widdle snowflake... She beat me to it. Pathetic!
I hear you.
It was the ride of a lifetime. I missed my family, but it took three weeks to get out there. Only a week to get home. They way to see this country is small highways on a weird looking motorcycle.
White people problem.
She wasn’t *in* the Grand Canyon. She was on the south rim.
Maps of the area are freely available. One *never* relies upon electronics for navigation without backup.
If one is going to go into the forest or desert on unimproved roads, one needs to take a land navigation/map reading course.
Modern girl scouts are not *Scouts*. They are SJWs.
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