The young Woman is Amber VanHecke. She was sightseeing when her vehicle ran out of petrol, forcing her to rely on practically nothing to survive the heat. Amber used the large rocks she found nearby to create a huge "HELP" sign, which was missed by the planes that flew by from surrounding areas. Amber had arrived there following her Google Maps direction that lead her to what turned out to be a non-existent road.
Amber vlogged her 119 hours astray
Amber created a video blog to document herself during the time she was stranded. Her attempts to make passing planes stop did not seem to be working, and there were no vehicles passing.
With limited food and drinks available, the young woman was quickly finding herself exhausted and sick from the lack of nutrition. At one point in her wait, she thought she had heard a truck passing by and decided to run after the truck, but it didn't see her, and her feet were swollen from not wearing her shoes. Panicked and overwhelmed after that, Amber decided to walk quite the distance to find phone coverage. After 11 miles of walking, she found a spot with enough signal to contact 911. Her 49-second call was cut short, but the rescue team managed to locate her as she was walking back towards her parked Ford Edge. Less than an hour later, an air ambulance finally picked up her plea for help on March 17.
Amber had left a note on her car before her walk, in case someone passes by.
With regards to her trip, Amber had posted her plans on her Facebook account, before starting the sightseeing trip on March 10. Two days later, Amber entered "Havasu Galls Trail Head in Supai, Arizona" into her Google Maps, and then was shown the direction towards a road that did not exist.
Amber, a student of the University of Texas, told the Daily Mail, "I turned anyway and figured I'd see the road momentarily. It was getting dark. I came up to a fence with no roads in sight. Panicked since GPS stopped working, too."
The location-sharing app wasn't working
The smart woman had installed a location-sharing app that would send her locations to family members if they texted her a trigger word, but without phone reception the app was useless.
After doing all that she could to make sure that someone would get her message, Amber was rescued and flown to the nearest hospital to be treated for dehydration and exposure. She has set up a GoFundMe account to raise fund for her medical expenses, as she returned to her university in Denton to continue studying international business diplomacy with a minor in alternative dispute resolution. At the time of writing, she had managed to raise $2,260 of her $1,200 goal in just two days. On the fundraising page, she wrote, "I am doing my best to get by for myself but I hadn't planned for something like this."
