WELLINGTON, New Zealand — An American exchange student and her mother were rescued during the weekend in the New Zealand wilderness, where they were lost for five days. A helicopter pilot spotted the large “help” signs they had made from fern fronds.
After thinking she would die, Rachel Lloyd, 22, is now recovering in Wellington Hospital with her mother, Carolyn. The pair recounted their ordeal.
Day One
Carolyn Lloyd, 47, of Charlotte, N.C., was visiting her daughter, and Rachel was eager to show her some highlights of New Zealand. They decided to do a day hike in the expansive Tararua Forest Park. It was close to where Rachel was completing a semester abroad at Massey University in Palmerston North, after finishing most of a double degree at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
They left April 26, with Rachel’s backpack filled with water, trail mix and other snacks. They followed orange markers up a trail for about three hours to a summit, where they enjoyed sunny weather and spectacular views. But as they set off to complete the circular trail, they couldn’t locate any more orange markers and started following some blue markers down a hill.
“It got very steep, very jungly,” said Rachel. “The markers completely stopped after about 20 minutes, but it was so steep it was physically impossible to climb back up.”
Rachel said they descended until they got stuck on a tiny ledge atop a 600-foot waterfall. As it got dark, they straddled a tree and lay atop one another to keep warm, keeping each other awake so they wouldn’t fall over the edge.
Day Two
The pair forged ahead by scaling down the cliff next to the waterfall. “There would be one tiny little rock, or one tiny shrub, and we’d swing to the next thing,” Rachel Lloyd said.
Once down, they followed a stream, figuring it would lead to civilization. But they were forced to keep switching sides, and Rachel fell into the icy water, hitting her head on a rock.
“That’s when I started going downhill,” she said. “I could never get dry and couldn’t get warm the rest of the trip.”
Carolyn piggybacked her daughter at times. They made camp that night in a grassy clearing. They gathered ferns and lay atop each other as they tried to keep warm in temperatures that fell close to freezing.
Day Three
Their cellphones died. Now they had no way to contact anybody, and nobody yet knew they were missing. Unknown to them, Carolyn’s husband, Barry, had been sending messages, urging them to get in touch, but hadn’t raised the alarm. Some hikers in the area stay overnight in huts, so the fact their car remained at the trailhead might not have seemed unusual.
The pair kept following the stream, but it became deep and unpassable. They turned back and found a flat area with some sun and decided to stay put.
Rachel said she was losing her vision and hearing. They were rationing what little food they had left, eating as little as three peanuts at a time. They drank fresh water from the streams.
Day Four
Carolyn came up with the idea of making the “help” signs. She made one in a creek bed and another in a clearing, using dead fern fronds, sticks and stones to make letters 6 feet high.
Rachel said she thought she was going to die and began relaying her last wishes to her mom, telling her who should get various souvenirs she had collected in New Zealand.
“I was terrified as a mother,” Carolyn said. “I was doing everything I could to keep her alive.”
By this time, authorities knew something was wrong. Carolyn had failed to check out of her hotel and return her rental car. Authorities sent search teams into the forest.
Day Five
Jason Diedrichs, chief pilot for Amalgamated Helicopters, said police asked him Saturday morning to try to find the missing women. He didn’t know all the details, he said, but he knew that after four nights missing, it could well be a mission to haul out bodies.
However, after 30 minutes of searching, at about noon, he spotted a “help” sign in a riverbed. As he circled overhead, he spotted the second “help” sign in a small clearing and saw the two women waving.
“To be honest, we were pretty relieved,” he said.
He said Carolyn seemed OK but Rachel was clearly weak and exhausted, and he needed to lift her into the helicopter. She was admitted to Wellington Hospital suffering hypothermia and undernourishment.
Rachel said despite everything, she intends to finish her studies in New Zealand.
“I’m feeling so, so much better,” she said Monday. “I’ve gotten a lot of food into me. I’m eating all the time, and just hearing my father’s voice and my brother’s voice. On both sides of the equator, everyone’s support and love has been so overwhelming.”
