My face was full of blood. My body was physically in so
much pain. It was completely dark.
But I couldn't do anything. I felt completely helpless.
If I wanted to survive this, I needed to pull myself out from
HV Studio. This is unnerved.
Welcome back to the Unnerved podcast.
It's where normal people share their abnormal stories, and if
you enjoy true stories of the strange and terrifying, then
you're in the right place. I'm your host, Chris Fricke.
If you're like me, sometimes I need a reset, something to help
decompress from stress and all the noise that life brings.
For me, escaping into nature is the perfect place to decompress
and evaluate life. The fresh air and beautiful
scenery helps relax the mind and bring clarity, but at times we
might find ourselves doing this completely alone.
But being alone in unfamiliar territory is when we're most
susceptible to danger. In today's story, Amber shares
an experience where she found herself alone on a hike in
Arizona. What started as an enjoyable
adventure and a new place quickly became a battle to
survive. Amber would endure the worst
physical and mental challenge of her life.
This is her story. Well the date was May 20th, 2016
and I had just completed my first year out of college and I
was a nurse, so 312 hour shifts is all.
I worked a week. I was going around a lot with my
free time and I made a goal for myself to hit all 50 states in
my 20s. On this particular trip I had
two weeks vacation and the first week I was at a nursing
conference in New Orleans. I flew out West and my second
week was going to be exploring Nevada, Arizona, and Utah.
I flew out West and headed towards this beautiful ranch
that I found on Airbnb and that's where I was going to
spend my first night. This next morning I planned to
drive 45 minutes N to Kanab, UT to volunteer at Best Friends
Animal Society. My mom knew, and when I arrived
at this ranch in Arizona, I told the owners, so at this point
they also knew. So when I arrived at this
Airbnb, I had spoken with the owners for about 45 minutes.
It was almost sunset on a Friday night.
So I asked them if they could give me a nearby recommendation
and they said, you know, you can hike up the backyard.
There's some beautiful petroglyphs at the top, he said
About half of our visitors can find them.
I'm a really competitive person, so I wanted to be in the half
that found them. So I started my hike up.
I am by no means an expert hiker, but I've spent my whole
life outdoors. I have horses.
We do a lot of hiking, camping, everything in Wisconsin and
Minnesota where I've lived previously.
But you know, it's a different type of terrain.
There was a tree with a little circle around it and from that
point on I couldn't see a trail, so I sort of created my own from
what looked like it would be where the trail follows.
Instead of looking under the boulders at the top, I climbed
over them and I should have looked underneath them for the
petroglyphs. So I was about an hour into this
hike. I had reached the top and I was
amazed. It was a beautiful spot, but I
quickly realized I'm not going to find these petroglyphs and
the sun is setting. So I started to backtrack my
steps and it didn't take long before I realized I have no idea
how I got up here. Like everything, looking down
looked a lot different than coming up.
The markers that I thought I had tracked disappeared.
Of course I was embarrassed to call 911 for help.
I just got upset with myself and so I was like, I need to find my
way down. I'm not calling anybody.
This is embarrassing. I have a commitment.
In the morning I was upset more than scared.
I probably spent 1520 minutes trying to find a way down and
every way I started I just struggled and I reached a Cliff
edge where I couldn't get any further down.
I felt defeated, but I thought, you know what?
I'm just going to call 911. And that's when I realized I had
absolutely no service. I couldn't see anybody, even on
the ground for miles around me. And so that's when panic really
set in. I had, I think it was probably
about 10 feet. I had this boulder that I needed
to literally climb down. I didn't have a harness, you
know, no way to protect myself. But I had to climb down this.
And if I would have fallen, there wasn't really an edge to
catch me. But at this point, I didn't
really feel like I had way up. So I just remembered checking my
phone, and it was 745. And I climbed down this folder,
you know, bracing myself. Thank God I had the arm strength
for it. And I reached the bottom.
I felt really relieved. Thank God I'm going to get
myself out of here. I was determined.
And that's my last memory. I woke up at about 9:15 PM.
It was completely dark. My face was full of blood.
My body was physically in so much pain.
I had no idea what happened. I just remember grabbing my
phone out of my bag and seeing an hour and a half later
something happened. You know, I I hurt myself and I
ended up actually being over a mile away from where I'd last
checked my phone and 100 feet straight down in a slot cannon.
So of course I didn't plan to go that direction, but I just must
not have been able to go down. And what I later learned on
based on my injuries, I broke my nose, so I must have hit my face
first, knocking me unconscious. And I landed on my feet based on
my injuries. I had spinal pelvic
disassociation, which means I literally broke my sacrum
completely in half. It's also called the suicide
drumper fracture. So my body was basically split
in two pieces, so I couldn't stand up, I couldn't walk, I
couldn't really feel much from my waist down.
And I think the reason I survived is because I must have
hit my face first and just fall in like like a wet noodle.
You know, I never tried to stop myself.
I didn't break any parts of my arms, my legs.
It all was my pelvis. It was dark, it was cold.
It dropped from the 70s to I believe the 50s that night.
It was one of the most record high windy nights.
Physically, I was in so much pain.
So I was in a space about 10 by 10 feet, probably completely
enclosed. Nothing probably could have
reached me, but I didn't know that I was worried about animals
or rattlesnakes or, you know, bears.
Something sniffing me out and attacking me.
But I couldn't do anything. I felt completely helpless.
That night. I just kind of went in and out
of consciousness. I was awake a lot, but I also I
don't remember a lot of it. I just laid there.
I just kind of accepted this. This might be my fate.
I don't know. I don't know what's going to
happen next. As the sun rose the next
morning, I realized that if I wanted to survive this, I needed
to pull myself out. I needed to figure it out
because my mom knew where I was. The owners knew where I was, you
know, roughly. But I didn't know if anybody
would really look for me. I didn't even know my exact
location. I ended up climbing out of this
little cave that I was stuck in. There was a small opening and I
got myself to the edge of the slot cannon and I looked down
and I was still a couple 100 feet above ground and there was
nowhere for me to go. Especially because at this point
I was crawling. I couldn't, you know, I was
pretty helpless. So I sat at that edge for a
while. It was probably over an hour and
I just looked down. I waited to see if I saw any
life, any sort of movement. There was nothing.
I thought about just dropping my body off the edge.
I thought, I'm either going to die and get it over with and put
myself out of my misery because I was physically in so much
pain, or I thought, maybe I'll survive.
I can roll, you know, roll myself down.
Maybe I'll survive and then somebody will at least find me.
Or I can crawl somewhere, you know?
I was looking for really any of the little strain of hope
because I was really, really desperate.
Thankfully, I reasoned with myself not to do that because
for sure I would have died. So I crawled my way back in.
But going back in now, the size of the hole I had crawled out
hadn't changed, but I don't know if it was the way I was pulling
myself or what. But getting back into that small
space I could barely fit and I kind of had to squeeze my pelvis
to fit through again, screaming through the pain, I was pretty
helpless. I still wanted to survive, but I
just. I just didn't know what to do at
this point. I didn't have any water left.
I finished it when I was like before my fall at the top.
The few things I had in my backpack at that point really
weren't helpful. I had some wipes, some
carabiners, a small pack of nuts, which I didn't.
I had no desire to eat anything. I heavily relied on my phone.
I was sending out messages to the owners of this Airbnb, to my
parents, to some of my friends. Of course, nobody received any
of the messages because I didn't have service.
They did later, which was really traumatic for my parents.
But yeah, at this time I really utilized my phone and relied on
it to keep me positive. So I looked through all the
pictures on my phone and like I said, I just finished my first
year as a adult, you could say out of school.
I had been traveling a lot. I think this was the 13th state
I had been through this year and I had just a few months earlier
flown around the world from my home in Minnesota to London down
to Southeast Asia to a few countries there through Tokyo
and back to Minnesota. So literally I flew around the
world and I was just on such a hype at that point in my life.
I loved it. I was so happy and looking
through all these pictures on my phone, it just, it made me feel
really, really good and so grateful for my opportunities.
I kind of came to the conclusion like, OK, I don't want to die,
but if I do, thank God. Like I lived my life the way I
wanted. Like I wasn't afraid.
I I did a lot, so I was really proud of myself.
So I got to that step where it just was kind of accepting what
happened. But again, I still didn't want
to give up, you know, I wanted to get out of there.
Eventually that afternoon, I had this vision.
I had this man's voice start speaking to me, and I couldn't
see anyone I just saw. It was just bright.
This voice told me you need to start climbing up.
You will survive. Somebody is coming to get you,
but you need to climb. You need to climb.
I don't know what what caused it, you know, I do believe in
God, so I don't know if it was my beliefs or what.
So I started trying to climb up and because I was in a slot
cannon, it was almost like a natural rock staircase where I
could climb up part of the way. But the first boulder was a
large one. I pulled myself up to my feet
and then I tried to jump to get up on top of it and I just fell,
fell back down and pulled. And again my pelvis was broken.
So probably doing myself a lot of damage.
I can't do this. And I screamed and cried.
It hurts so bad. And then I laid there for a
while. I had to do it.
I didn't have any other choice. I need to do it again.
I need to try it. I need to build up the momentum.
So that's what I did. I jumped again.
I made it. I just lay there and smiled and
cried. And I was so proud of myself for
getting over this first boulder. And then eventually I got back
up and I I kept climbing little by little.
I climbed as far as I could. And yeah, at the time when I
climbed up and I got to this little ledge, it was very maybe
3 feet wide. It wasn't very wide.
I was stuck from here. It was just straight up.
There was nowhere I could go physically.
I couldn't crawl back down. I was also afraid if I slept on
this ledge that I would eventually just fall again,
because I really didn't have a lot of space UPS, downs up,
downs. I was on a roller coaster of
emotions. I just hit rock bottom.
Mentally I thought I'm not getting out, I'm stuck.
I'm in a worse place than I was before and at this point also I
was by the opening of the cannon so the wind was hitting me.
I was shivering. It sucked.
It was not it was not good. I laid on this edge for about 3
hours and during this time I took pictures of my face, which
this was the first time that I I really thought I was going to
die, where I really, really lost all hope.
I took pictures of myself and I wrote goodbye messages to my
family and this was kind of like me closing the chapter and
accepting that I'm not going to get out of here.
I don't think I'm going to survive another night.
I kind of accepted it for myself that like, I was happy with the
way I lived my life. I had a great life, You know, I
have a great life. But if this is the end, it's the
end. I kind of accepted that for me.
But I just couldn't get the idea of my family out of my head.
You know what they're going to hear?
They're never going to find my body.
They're never going to know. So that was the part that I
really, really struggled with. I just felt like I really let
them down because family family's number one, I was
laying on this edge. I was on it for about 3 hours
and sunset. I started hearing noises.
I blew my whistle and it was very faint, but I started
blowing my whistle like crazy. They thought it was a bird, you
know, they got suspicious. They're like that can't be a
bird. That's that's got to be a call
for help. They heard the whistle.
They brought the search and rescue crew.
There was about 100 people looking Kingman AZ helicopter
came in. So all the local search and
rescue plus them. So they brought the helicopter
over to that area and they were flying and flying and you know,
looking. It was a just vast area
everywhere. And I was just so desperate,
waiting for them to look in my cannon and find me.
At this point I was on my knees. I had my left arm pushing up, my
body, supporting myself. My whistle was still in my
mouth, which, you know, you can't hear it with a helicopter.
I just think that because I was just on survival mode, but if
you logically think through, you're never going to hear a
whistle. But it actually worked out well
because when they heard my whistle, they knew the
helicopter was in the wrong direction.
And when they couldn't hear my whistle, then they were, you
know, getting closer. I had my right arm just waving
over my body with my phone and my light in my hand, just trying
to make myself as visible as I could.
The weird thing about earlier, having that like vision, that
inspiration to climb up, I actually got to an area where I
was visible from the helicopter where I was lying.
Previously, they would have never seen me, but I was on this
ledge waving my arm and all of a sudden, you know, finally that
helicopter, they shined right in my cannon.
You know that moment I'll never forget, where I saw a man in the
helicopter point right at me and my heart just sunk.
They found me. They saw me and I'm going to
live, you know, I'm, I'm going to survive.
It was powerful, but because of the location of where I was at,
it then took another six hours to actually Get Me Out of the
cannons. It was around a little after
midnight when they had reached me in the cannon and.
They flew a few first responders on top of the slot cannons, but
at this point, remember, it was completely dark.
Again, there's no light pollution out here, so it's dark
and it's dangerous for everyone. So they set up a camp on top of
the cannons, and then they brought one guy down in a
harness. He was the first person I had
contact with and because of the nature of where I was stuck,
they couldn't use the basket, which they typically would use
for people. It was a really narrow area, so
they actually had to put me in a climbing harness and that's how
they pulled me out. So remember, my pelvis is
already broken. They put me in a rock climbing
harness and the two of us went up together.
So again, it was really painful, but at this point, you know, I
wasn't alone anymore and I was doing whatever it took to get
myself out of there. So I got out around 1:00 in the
morning and I was up on top of the cliffs with them.
At this point I was just so relieved, but I was still
physically in a lot of pain. They assessed me as a level 2
trauma. I needed serious help.
My nerves were pinching. I had fractures from T11 through
L1, my thoracic in my lumbar spine, compression fractures,
and then where my sacrum was. Those nerves were some were
severed, some were torn. Another part of this is I tore
all of the nerves in my pelvis so I couldn't go to the
bathroom. My bladder was another thing.
I had no way, you know, to do that.
So my bladder was like, I think they assessed it was between
like 2 and 3 liters full at this point, and we didn't realize
that at first. But like, my bladder was so
full. It was pushing on everything.
I had no urge to go because I couldn't feel anything.
I had so much pressure from that.
I was still screaming and excruciating pain.
They had given me pain meds, but I needed to get to the hospital,
so their plan was to camp out with me until sunlight, when it
was safer to remove me. Thank God.
Another miraculous thing that happened for me.
The wind again. It was a really, really windy
day, extreme even for that time. The wind completely stopped.
There was nothing. They just decided in that moment
we need to bring the helicopter and we need to get her off and
get her to the hospital. They put me on the edge of the
rock, you know, down in fetal position and with my head down,
my hands covering my head. And they said do not move until
somebody comes to get you. You need to stay in this
position. And what they did actually was
they couldn't land the helicopter, so they brought it
to the edge of the spot cannon. They put one of the skis down on
the rock and then opened the door.
And when they were ready, they pulled me, grabbed me in and
away I went. The wind literally stopped for
15 minutes. That's it.
As soon as I hit the ground because I took an ambulance then
to the hospital, they just flew me from the top a couple 100
feet down to the ground. It was about a 15 minute time
frame. One of my first responders she
the EMT. She was like Amber.
I swear 15 minutes that when picked right back off it was a
miracle that it stopped. I had emergency surgery in the
ER. I made contact with my parents,
so I had 6 pins placed and my mom flew out the next day.
I immediately had so much support, so many people helping
me, taking care of me, sending letters, sending mail.
I had a lot of support from Mayo Clinic, a lot of support from
Best Friends Animal Society. My recovery was amazing.
After 10 days at Dixie Regional Medical Center, I was at Mayo
Clinic another seven days, had surgery on my broken nose there,
and then I went home. I was on bed rest.
You know I'm a nurse so when they told me rehab, I said no
way I'm going home. I'm recovering at my parents
house so my mom became my caregiver and we had a few other
friends help us out, which was phenomenal.
My dog never left my side. I was on bed rest for three
months and then I started physiotherapy.
Seven months off of work and a year later I had surgery again.
The fracture lines were still there but it was stable enough.
I had all the pins removed and a year and a half later I went
back to work full time and here I am today.
Amber Conehorst has a love for travel and for animals.
That's what took her to Utah on a trip to volunteer at an animal
sanctuary. It's a trip that didn't go as
planned. While hiking in Cane Beds, AZ on
Friday, Amber got lost and worried, she says.
That's the last thing she remembers.
Amber had fallen, tumbling 100 feet down the side of a
rockledge. I literally just went from one
side to the other and I screamed every time I moved because I
thought I was going to die. A broken nose and pelvis,
fractured vertebrae, a spinal injury and much more.
Broken physically and emotionally, Amber used her cell
phone, which didn't have service, to take photos, to send
to loved ones. I basically, at that point I
wrote my parents, no, just because I thought I was, you
know, I didn't know if I'd see him again and I wanted to give
them goodbyes. But what Amber didn't know was a
search crew of about 100 had formed.
The owners of the Airbnb where she was staying noticed she
hadn't come back and called authorities.
About 28 hours after her fall, she was spotted by a helicopter.
Rescue crew. Physically, I I've struggled a
lot. And mentally, especially right
after my accident that the first two years I had a lot of PTSD
and traumatic nightmares. You know, I would, I would just
wake up in a panic. I couldn't sleep in the dark for
a while. And so there were a lot of
things that I did struggle with and I think it's important for
people to know that because we all, when we go through events,
we process it our own way in and it's normal to struggle.
But I knew I had a choice and I couldn't let myself down.
And I think that's the biggest message that I try to send to
people today is follow your heart.
Like, take your brain with you, be smart about it, but like,
follow your heart, Do what makes you happy and get out of your
comfort zone. You know, we we only have one
life. We got to live it the best way
we can. And that's what I still try to
do. And to be honest, my accident
really taught me a good lesson on how to live my best life.
So I feel like I'm a much better person.
I try not to focus on what some people would call failures.
I guess my goal was to get to all 50 states.
In my 20s, I had my accident and then COVID hit.
So I've hit forty of those 50 states.
I didn't complete my goal, but you know what?
At some point in my life, I'm going to get it done and I'm
going to enjoy it. So what advice would you give to
other hikers? There's so many hikers that go
missing or people that have fallen.
I always, always, always have a whistle on me.
You know, it's a dollar investment.
And that's something I've told people over and over again.
I don't care if you're in the streets or if you're in the
country, buy a whistle, Keep it on you.
You never really know what it can save you.
I get stories sent to me all the time.
Some survive and some don't. And it goes to show how common
it is. And I just know I'm one of the
lucky ones. Thank God my life did work out
the way it did. Over 1000 people on average, go
missing from national parks and public lands every year.
Amber was one of the lucky ones. Her traumatic experience is a
miraculous story of survival that most of us can't even
imagine. I'm not trying to scare anyone
away from hiking alone, but if you do, always tell someone
exactly where you're going and when you're going to return.
This small step could make the difference between life and
death. Thanks again for listening to
Unnerved. If you enjoyed this episode,
please share it with your friends and leave a review
wherever you get your podcast. And if you guys want to see
photos related to each episode, be sure to follow us on
Instagram at Unnerved Podcast. There you'll be able to see the
goodbye Selfie photos that Amber took of herself, as well as the
100 foot drop that she fell from.
Until next time, take care.