Hiking Couple Hears Whisper In The Trees, Makes Unexpected Discovery

A couple who were out taking pictures ended up saving a woman’s life when they heard her cries for help and saw where she was trapped.

Heather Blackwelder, 29, was driving along SR-92 in American Fork Canyon, Utah, when her car went off the road, according to KSL. Her car landed right side up, but police say the car ended up several hundred feet off the road, in thick trees and brush. Blackwelder was trapped inside the car for two days, out of the sight of passersby on the main road.

Fortunately, a couple happened to be walking along the road, taking pictures, when they heard Blackwelder screaming for help. As soon as they realized what was happened, they jumped into action to help rescue the woman.

Police said if the couple had not happened on Blackwelder that day, there is a good chance she may not have survived.

“Had somebody not found her today or the next day or so she would have died,” said Sgt. Spencer Cannon with the Utah County Sheriff’s Office. “It could literally have been years before she was found. [The area] is not a hiking trail, it’s not along a trail. It has thick trees and is on the side of the mountain. The car could have been well rusted before she was found.”

Spencer Dreyden and his girlfriend, Cleo Jackson, were the ones who found Blackwelder. As they were walking, they heard Blackwelder’s cries for help, but were unsure where they were coming from as they could not see the vehicle from where they were.

There was no cellphone service in the area, so Jackson went to get help as Dreyden continued looking for the source of the sounds. Finally, he spotted the vehicle hidden in the dense vegetation.

Dreyden said it is “a miracle” that Blackwelder survived her crash and that she was able to shout.

“From the distance of where the road was, and the condition that the car was in, it just, it seemed like she should have been way more injured than that,” Dreyden told KSTU. “She wasn’t punctured at all by any of the metal in the car or anything like that. She just had, what I believed to be bones that were broken from being tumbled around.”

First responders from the Utah County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue, LifeFlight and Lone Peak Fire Department arrived after Jackson’s call for help and were able to rescue Blackwelder safely from the vehicle.

She was flown to a nearby medical center, where she was treated for injuries, including several broken bones. Officials say her injuries did not appear to be life-threatening.

Cannon reiterated how unlikely it was for Blackwelder to be found considering where her car ended up.

“And being stuck there, being in an area where nobody driving by in a car, riding by on a motorcycle or riding by on a bicycle would have seen her — very unlikely that anybody driving or riding a bike would have heard her, and these folks that did find her: It was just really, really fortunate that they heard her in the first place and were able to work their way down to where she was,” he said.

Sources: KSL, KSTU / Featured Image: Pixabay / Embedded Images: USCO via Daily Mail