The Sonic Hitchhiker Podcast
Welcome to The Sonic Hitchhiker podcast !
This podcast is dedicated to all things strange , mysterious, unusual and out of the ordinary.
Billy Shadow is your host for this program .
Billy has traveled all over the United States and has led an interesting life .
His time in the ghettos , visiting prisoners , serving in the military , traveling the country while living in a bus , working as an electrical contractor for high profile celebrities, playing in bands ,
writing and performing music and much more . He has first hand experience in cult organizations and has had several supernatural encounters.
Because of his life , he brings a unique take to the subjects that will be discussed on this podcast .
Now based out of Atlanta , Ga
The Sonic Hitchhiker Podcast
Frostbite, Hallucinations, and a Cousin's Dream
Sarah Ledford shares her miraculous survival story after being stranded for 30 hours in freezing Wyoming wilderness with no supplies or communication. Her harrowing experience reveals how an unexplainable spiritual connection with her cousin across the country ultimately led to her rescue.
• Recently escaped an abusive relationship and was living with new roommates in Jackson, Wyoming
• Joined roommates on a ski trip to Targhee resort despite barely knowing them
• Became separated when her companions went off-trail into dangerous terrain
• Followed ski tracks that led her deeper into wilderness instead of back to resort
• Survived overnight in temperatures reaching -8°F by seeking shelter under evergreen trees
• Experienced hypothermia and frostbite, reaching a core body temperature of 86°F
• Heard and spoke with "search parties" throughout the night that weren't actually there
• Rescued at 4:50pm after creating a branch marker in a clearing
• Discovered her cousin 3,000 miles away had nightmares about being trapped with Sarah
• Cousin's persistent calls prompted the search party that ultimately saved Sarah's life
This world is amazing, and if you look around, just understand that what you see physically is not all there is to it. There are other dimensions that we can't see.
Welcome to the Sonic Hitchhiker podcast dedicated to all things strange, mysterious and just plain out of the ordinary. It is because of his interest in these experiences that this podcast was created. And now your host, billy Shadow.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone. As the announcer said, this is Billy Shadow here with David Fine, the producer, and I want to let you guys know that today we have an amazing show for you. This is unlike any other show that we've done so far. This is a show about survival. This is a show about being rescued, this is a show about spirituality, this is a show about miracles, and I think you're really going to enjoy this. I'm telling you you're in for a treat, david. What did you think about the story that we're going to hear today?
Speaker 3:It got me emotional, me too, and I just met Sarah today. I mean, she's a great person with a great story, and in the past season we had guests that you know, had stories that you know that could be. You may not believe, but trust me, folks, what you're about to hear is it's just amazing that she's here today to talk about it. I mean, most people would have just given up, but she didn't give up and it's an amazing story, it's. It's one of those ones that you're going to want to pass on to people going. You know, determination, you know, don't give up, you know, and just go with your gut and uh and you'll be around, but it's definitely definitely an amazing story.
Speaker 2:And now, without further ado, sarah and Ledford enjoy.
Speaker 4:So I do have to start with um, the there there's a whole relationship part of the story that is a big part of it. Okay, um, I moved out there in in a very um, bad relationship. Um, it was abusive and I really didn't know it was abusive until we moved out there and then it started becoming very obvious. We had a couple of incidences leading up to this. Let me back up. Basically, some stuff had happened in Georgia that I had confronted him about and we had already gotten married by that point. It was a very pressured, manipulated marriage and when I confronted him about it he came to me about a week later and said he had decided that we were moving to Wyoming. It's a very classic isolation type of action and his point of view was that I was the wife and he was the boss and that's what we were doing. So within a month we packed up our entire lives and moved to Wyoming. I did not know a soul out there and he was definitely the boss. I did not have a job, you know, money, didn't have my own car, any of that. So it quickly became obvious that what he was doing was abusing me because there was, you know, it was obvious then there was, you know, it was obvious then.
Speaker 4:So there was an incident around New Year's where it got really really scary. Cops were called and the result of that was that his mom bought me a plane ticket and flew me home to kind of regroup with my mom. My mom and his mom have a backstory through church and small town and that kind of thing, and his mom always seemed to come to his rescue, if you know what I mean. So I go back about a week later and this is January, and he was extremely nice for a couple weeks. Then February he started back with the same behavior and it got really really scary. The week prior to this incident was the ultimate fight for my life. His abuse was more sexual and the situation in February was a full-on trying to rape me situation when I was fighting and trying to get away. Then I'm finding myself literally fighting for my life. He's strangling me from the back with my sweater and the only reason miraculously that I got away at that point is because my sweater ripped off and I just run out of the room. I run to the front door, I grab my coat no shirt. Throw my coat on and run out the door no shoes, no shirt, but I had the coat on and some pants and there was a police station a few blocks up the road. I literally ran straight to the police station. Remember, this is Wyoming, it's February, everything is snow covered. So I'm I literally run to the police station in the snow.
Speaker 4:In Wyoming they have really strict they had I don't know this is back in 96 97 really strict domestic abuse laws and so he was required to spend 72 hours in jail and then we were required to go 30 days with no contact. So in that 72 hours that he was in jail I decided that that was my chance to get away. So I started asking for resources. The police station gave me this like I don't know what her title is, but guidance person, guidance counselor person, uh, contact. She got me in contact with the community center and she said there's a lot of resources here. So the next day it was like a Monday, uh, tuesday maybe I go to the community center and there's a board with all of these little ads. Remember, this is like before the Internet and before your cell phones and all that stuff. So there is an ad posted that says room for rent.
Speaker 2:What year was this?
Speaker 4:This was 97.
Speaker 2:97, okay.
Speaker 4:At the beginning of 97. We moved out there at the end of 96, and we were there for five months. Okay, so five months. So I see this little ad room for rent and I'm like, perfect, I call them, I go to meet them, meet them it's a roommate type of situation and they let me move in that day. So when he got out of jail I was gone.
Speaker 4:So I have to tell that whole part of it, because that's how you end up in a situation where you're going to a ski resort with strangers you never met before, and I was so dumb and naive, I just was, you know, just thought, oh, it'll be fine, you know, the world's my oyster, right, like it'll be fine. Um, so I had just met this group that week and they say to me we're going to Targhee this weekend, this Saturday, do you want to go? And, of course, number one, everybody out there. If you move out there for winter events, you have your own skis, you have your own equipment. Of course I had my own equipment and all that. Yeah, I want to go.
Speaker 2:Can you explain to the audience and to us what Targhee is exactly? I know it's a ski resort, but it's located where.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we moved to Jackson, wyoming. Most people know it as Jackson Hole, but Jackson Hole is actually the ski resort outside of town. The town is called Jackson, okay, so everybody's familiar with Jackson Hole Ski Resort. Targhee is on the other side of the mountain chain, so you got the Teton Mountains. On the other side of that mountain chain are the Targhee Mountains. Targhee's located in Idaho and Targhee is known for the extreme skiing.
Speaker 4:Okay, and I was used to Black Diamond, you know I I was like, oh yeah, no problem, I'll be fine. Um, so that. So yeah, so they're gonna go out of town across the pass. The pass is a little bitty trail road basically that gets you from one side of the mountain to another. So we're going to go over to the pass and go ski Targhee this weekend and they're all snowboarders I'm the skier of the bunch and I'm just thinking, oh yeah, I'll be fine, I can hold my own on the slopes and stuff, slopes and stuff. So that you know, it's a situation where I mean this is before cell phones and I mean of course there was cell phones then, but it wasn't common, not like it is now. No, it's not like everybody has a cell phone pretty much for communicating.
Speaker 2:There was, there wasn't all of the technology they have now. So, yeah, when you tell us in a few minutes, when you get lost, it's not like it is now. You just can't call someone or get the signal to your phone and all of this stuff. It's totally different, okay.
Speaker 4:Well, I didn't have a cell phone.
Speaker 2:Okay, you didn't even have a cell phone. No, I didn't.
Speaker 4:I do remember that I had a cell phone when I lived in Georgia before we moved, but once we moved out there then I didn't get a replacement cell phone. We had a home phone.
Speaker 2:So, coming out of an abusive relationship, you're away from that relationship and you've met up with this group in Wyoming. Now, this is a group of skiers. You decide to go skiing? Yep, and now?
Speaker 4:so and, by the way, this is february yeah and it's full on winter time yeah yeah, deep snow, yeah, bad weather at night, yeah, very cold yes, um, I'll go ahead and tell you that the night in the mountains it got down to negative eight. Oh, wow so it was about 12 during the day and below. You know it said in the town that it was negative four, but I mean I was back in the mountains, so negative eight.
Speaker 2:Windy?
Speaker 4:No, not really that windy just no, extremely cold oh yeah, I'll tell you something cool when I get to that. Um, we get there at eight o'clock in the morning, eight o'clock in the morning, and we start by smoking a joint, right that's? I mean you know, right, set up, right ready. Yeah, um, one of the guys has extra stuff for me in his pack, like a water bottle and snacks and whatnot, right, so I'm gonna go through the. The things that I have learned is in regards to just caring for yourself, being in the woods. Number one do not have your stuff in someone else's pack. You carry your own pack. So, number one lesson there. All right, so we ride up, we ride the ski lifts.
Speaker 4:Remember, this is first thing in the morning 8 o'clock in the morning 8 o'clock in the morning we ride the lifts all the way to the top and immediately they start talking about hey, let's go over here. They want to go past the rope that says out of bounds to go snowboard the bowl. Okay, the bowl is an extremely dangerous avalanche prone area. Snowboarders love it. This is February, so avalanches are really likely in February. I was scared to death to go across a boundary so I said I don't think so, I'm just going to keep on skiing the slopes. We'll meet down at the bottom about 2.30, you know. So my trouble pretty much immediately started. I mean, I'm telling you, as soon as they went one direction and I went the other direction, I was thinking in my head I'm going to cut off this part of the trail. I'm going to ski down this little powder and cut off this part of the trail and get further down the trail. I'm gonna ski down this little uh powder and cut off this part of the trail and get further down the trail quicker. I just didn't want to be up there by myself for very long. I wanted to get back to where everybody else was on at the ski resort. Well, um, that it did not happen that way, because when I skied off that little powder cliff type of area, I actually skied into a whole nother um drainage area. So it didn't, I didn't come out around on a trail. It came out around straight into the wilderness on a trail. It came out around straight into the wilderness.
Speaker 4:I saw some other tracks and they looked like fresh tracks and so I was like, okay, somebody else obviously knows what they're doing. I'm gonna follow these tracks. It's got to lead back around to this, to the slope, to the trail, and it never did. Um, and there was, there was a sign at one point that said you, you you're out of bounds, go back. But those um tracks led beyond it and I thought how this guy's got to know what he's got to cut. Over all of my experience in mountains, it just I just knew it was just going to cut right back to the trail, so I didn't go back. When I turned around and looked how I would get back If I went back, those came same way I came down. It seemed way too hard for me. I was going to have to take my skis off and actually mountain climb, yeah, to get back up. I'm like there is no way. I'm just gonna keep on following these tracks, okay, so that.
Speaker 2:So I'm lost at that point and this is what do you think? Uh, still in the morning mid morning, and now you're lost. For sure, I've never been skiing, I've never had an interest in it, but when you're skiing, the trails that they want you to keep on are there, like flags and things that keep you from getting lost.
Speaker 4:They're groomed, the slopes and stuff are groomed and so you can tell. It's kind of like the difference of if you're walking a trail in the woods, you know how it's obvious that that is a trail that the rangers have made or the forest guys. That's how it is on, especially at a resort. They are very difficult, they're high difficulty level slopes and whatnot trails, but they make it obvious that those are the trails. It's either white or white, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2:It's either that white or that white, but the trails are definitely groomed, and now you know you're not on an obvious trail anymore. Oh, I'm, and you know you're lost. Yes, it's mid-morning. Yeah, are you panicking at this point?
Speaker 4:No, because I still see the I still no because here's the thing I knew everything. No, I wasn't panicking because I just felt like, oh, this is no big deal. No, I just was being stubborn and naive and thought, okay, I just need to go a little bit further.
Speaker 2:Now I'm going to ask this because I'm curious Are you high at this point?
Speaker 4:Oh, probably not.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 4:I don't remember the joint had worn off at at this point.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I have to ask. Yeah, I know, because sometimes you know I've been there, you know I'm not much of a smoker but I at times in my life I have, and I know that sometimes that can, that can uh kind of jumble up your judgment.
Speaker 4:Yeah that's why I asked well, I don't smoke anymore. I mean, I'm a grown woman, so no, so that wasn't a factor.
Speaker 2:You're just lost, but you're confident. You're a confident skier and you're also confident that, because you see this trail, it will lead you back around.
Speaker 1:And so so far.
Speaker 2:You feel you're off the trail. You know that, but you feel confident, you're still okay. You're not panicked yet, exactly Okay.
Speaker 4:Exactly Mid-morning, you're not panicked.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 4:And I'm more just like God. This sucks, like I have got a really hard way to get back up. I mean it just no cell phone in case you get, yeah, no backpack with any supplies.
Speaker 2:No, nothing on my back Now. That's because you gave your supplies to someone else to carry. Yep, and okay, yep, okay.
Speaker 4:I mean, I didn't he just, you know he had the backpack, I just wasn't. I didn't know how to prepare myself to go out into the wilderness. I thought I did because I've already always been like an outdoor girl.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Um, but you, I didn't know to be responsible for preparing myself but you have no ways of communicating, you have no supplies.
Speaker 2:You're just just you and your skis, no water or nothing. Yeah, well, you got snow.
Speaker 4:I guess that's not a factor not the same thing not the same thing okay all right, actually makes it worse okay, um, so, so then, so you're lost. All right. So about midday, I mean, this is going on for a while now and I'm definitely starting to get worried about midday, yeah, and I actually start kind of hollering because I'm seeing the tracks or whatever. I don't really know how much time had gone by, but I know that there was a point where I start hollering because the tracks really looked fresh, right and crazy enough.
Speaker 4:a guy yells back from all the way down there in the basin and he yells back and you know we're like. He says hey, I'm like I need help and he says I do too.
Speaker 2:Oh no, the blind leading the blind OK. Okay, so um he said this is the track. These are probably the tracks you're following. This one is lost too.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:Now what is so? And we never saw each other. We never saw each other. We never got that close. But he said I'm going to try to climb back up and I said I can't, I'm staying right here. And he said I'll get help and send help down. So I said okay, and that was it. And I thought, well, great, you know, like this, you know I'm fine. Um, I waited there a while, a while probably a few hours for him to show up or send helping, send help back down.
Speaker 2:Right, right, if he climbed up, send help back down. Yes, gotcha.
Speaker 4:Yes, because it would have been him sending, I understand, yeah, search and rescue to back down. Anyway, nobody came. And I'll tell you about that when we get there. But so nobody came. And I'll tell you about that when we get there. But so nobody came. And it so in winter, wyoming, the sun is setting at 5 o'clock, maximum, the sun sets 5.02. So I could tell the sun was getting close to set and that's when I started really freaking out Like whole—.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because now darkness is coming Right.
Speaker 4:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:And it's getting colder. I'm sure I've got to get the F out of here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, let me—here's another piece of the survival part. I was dressed properly. People don't dress the same. Here in the south we have a cold day and you know people put their little mittens on and whatever. No, when it's cold, I've got my long johns on and they're probably fleece. You know, I've. I know how to dress that's. That's a real big part of what saved my life with those temps is that I was dressed properly. I had, head to toe, real gear on, real sub freezing gear on. So, yeah, it was cold. It was more that I was scared of the wilderness OK, scared to death. Here's what I was going to tell you earlier. The coolest thing was that that night was a full moon, and so a full moon the moon reflecting on snow is very bright, and so I never had a problem seeing, oh yeah, which I really took that as a blessing because, you know, just Could have been worse, it could have been pitch black.
Speaker 4:It was very scary. So so, yeah, so now it's now it's nighttime, and I had walked quite a bit. Once I realized the sun was setting, I had started walking, I'd started just. I just was determined to get the F out of there. So nightfall came, and that was a struggle to survive. I don't think that I slept one minute. I don't think that I slept one minute. Every time I started trying to fall asleep, my body would start convulsing.
Speaker 2:How are you following? You're just laying on the ground to sleep.
Speaker 4:No, what are you doing? Oh, I'm glad you asked that question. Okay, the trees in Wyoming, you know they're different. They're like the big evergreens, right? So you got the big triangle type of tree and the branches are just all the way down and the entire thing is covered in snow. But the coolest part is, if you dig a tunnel into the trunk, there is a open space of ground where the snow hasn't gotten to because the branches are hanging over. The snow's blanketed over it.
Speaker 4:And so I would continuously dig my way into the little bitty perimeter around the tree trunk and lay down. The problem is that you know, like every I'm going to guess every 30 minutes or something, my body would start convulsing. I was so cold so you have never had shivers, unless your body is dying and trying to stay awake. That is some freaking shivers. Okay, true convulsions, just yeah, right. So every time that would happen, I would get up and walk a little bit more and um until I just couldn't are you walking up, trying to climb up the mountain?
Speaker 4:No, I'm just walking around, just walk, just walking in that general direction, but more of a downslope.
Speaker 2:What general direction?
Speaker 4:Where I thought I came from.
Speaker 2:So you're just guessing at this point. Oh yeah, you can see, because the moon is out and it's reflecting off the snow. It's full wilderness. You're trying to keep from freezing to death.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 2:And to do that. Every now and then you're stopping at these trees, getting up under it in the little spot. That does kind of shelter you somewhat. Yes, and you know this. Obviously you know no one's coming to look. No one has come to look for you. You don't think. Why didn't your friends, I wonder, send? Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, where are they at this, in all of this? Well, I mean they know you're missing at this point we.
Speaker 4:We found out later that they and it says it in one of the news articles they basically said they did not know me at all, they had just met me, yeah, and that they just thought I got lucky and they don't know you.
Speaker 4:I had left my post in personal belongings and they were probably young and naive too and didn't think anything about it, and so they got in there. I didn't show up at 2.30. When they finished with their day. They got in their car and drove an hour and a half hour and 45 minutes all the way back to Teton, all the way back to Jackson, without me and never thought anything about it. They just thought I would get a ride, because the thing between Jackson and Targhee, I guess, was a pretty common thing, and so people would get rides back and forth all the time.
Speaker 2:So no one's looking for you.
Speaker 4:Nobody even knows that I'm missing.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 4:Nobody.
Speaker 2:Now this is, we're in. It was five o'clock when it got dark, so now we're probably what? Four or five hours maybe later.
Speaker 4:Well, I don't really know. It is hard to tell uh-huh, uh-huh, did you have a?
Speaker 2:watch on no, no, no, no, watch, no, no, watch, no communication, no, compass nothing. I don't know if a compass nothing well, nothing, I will tell you.
Speaker 4:There was a point in the. In some point point in the night, I heard a, I heard a car and I I heard a car. What I heard was actually a forest ranger on a service road, but that gave me a general direction to head towards, and so that's what I was basically heading towards. But my progress was extremely slow, extremely slow, I mean it, I, you know. It's not like I walked a mile in 10 minutes, I mean it was. It probably took me an hour just to go 50 yards. I don't know, but it was. It was very slow going, um are you?
Speaker 2:even though you heard this and you're headed in a general direction, you're trying to keep from freezing to death. That's why you have to keep stopping at these trees. Is it fair to say you're panicked at this point?
Speaker 4:no, I was scared to. I wasn't panicked, I was terrified. But when I got terrified, I I'm I'm like kind of a freeze type of person. Um, so I mean panicked, I guess, is one way to say it, but no, I was terrified. I've never been that scared in my entire life. I was terrified. Uh, you know, I knew that my life was in danger. It wasn't just the freezing, it was um the animals, the wilderness, all that stuff yeah, what type of wildlife is that?
Speaker 2:the wolves?
Speaker 4:elk, yeah, wolves um elk and moose are the are the big game.
Speaker 2:The wolves I would be worried about.
Speaker 4:I was.
Speaker 2:Did you hear any of this? Yeah, of course.
Speaker 4:Yes, of course they didn't seem like they were very close. I did get walked up on by a whole herd of elk and that was scary because you know, they seemed to be right next to me. Maybe they didn't realize I was there because I was in that little, the little hole around the tree trunk. But I just terrified was more of my feelings. Yeah, just um, were you crying?
Speaker 2:have you ever been emotional?
Speaker 4:no, have you ever been so scared that you, you like you get nauseous?
Speaker 4:yeah well, that's where it was. It was more just just terrified all night and shaking and freezing and, um, funny thing is, if I had a snickers bar in my pocket, it was going to solve everything. Like I was so dang hungry, that all like a thing. And I mean I wasn't even a candy bar eater. It was a weird thing. But if I could have eaten a Snickers bar it would have just fixed everything and gone to sleep.
Speaker 4:When you have hype, the part about it that's not in the articles is the biggest danger to my life was hypothermia. When you are dying from hypothermia, your body just wants to go to sleep and so, um, you know I was fighting all that. There was a few moments, okay. So here's the really cool things that happened to keep me alive in my body, in my mind. Okay, there was a handful of times overnight that I definitely heard the search crew. Now, there's nobody searching, nobody even knows that I'm missing. So keep that in mind. Nobody even knows that I'm missing. So keep that in mind. I definitely heard the search crews to the point where we yelled back and forth to each other several times. You know I had back and forth conversations with the search party, at least four or five different times.
Speaker 2:This is probably your mind helping you to get comfort, like when someone's lost in the desert. You know, they see mirages, they see water and that's their target. They think there's water in the distance because their mind is so desperate for water that they see it, literally see it, and they go toward it, only to find out it's not there. It sounds like the same thing You're, you're, you're, you're wanting a search party. Your mind is fooling you into thinking there is one, to give you hope, maybe. I know the mind works strange ways. We've all experienced that. So, even though there was no search party, you're here in a search party. You're actually communicating. That had to give you some comfort in all of this.
Speaker 4:Yeah, chaos yep, well, are you ready for this? Yes, go ahead. All right. My cousin manda was leading the search party and she and her, she was yelling to me that, um, it's that, we're almost there. We're about to get you out. Hang on just a little bit longer, we're almost there.
Speaker 2:This fake search party was her leading the charge.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I only heard her a few times. I mean, I definitely heard the male voices.
Speaker 2:And I said fake. Fake I meant like a mirage of a search party.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, yes, yes, um so, okay, I make it through, I'm gonna come back to that. Okay, I make it through, I'm going to come back to that.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:I make it through the night. The sun is coming up and I had heard that herd of elk over this direction. You know, in my mind I'm like, okay, they were headed that direction. And I look over that direction and I see this big clearing in the trees, and so it's a field, field, snow-covered field. Um, but in my mind I thought I'm gonna make it to that field. I'm gonna make it. That was my goal, because at this point, I mean I'm at one point, I, you know, in the middle I don't have my shoes, my boots, on anymore.
Speaker 4:The reason my ski boots. The reason why is because my feet were so cold that I was taking my boots off and holding my toes to try to warm them up. But the problem is that my feet froze almost immediately and I couldn't get them back in my boots. So by this point I got no boots on. I do have triple, triple wool socks and all that stuff, um, but I thought if I can just make it to that clearing, then I know that they'll at least find me. Um, because I knew that I didn't have any more in me to make other than to make it to that clearing. So I did, I made it to that clearing about, I'm gonna guess, 11 am. And the reason why I say it was around there is because the sun was, the sun was full out and I got in the middle of that clearing. I had got, I had broken off some branches and I put branches in a big x and I oh sorry no, I see you getting emotional.
Speaker 2:That's okay, you're reliving it, I can tell in your mind so this was very traumatic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, near death experience is what you had.
Speaker 4:Yeah, for sure, oh there is a whole divine intervention. Part of it we'll get to when I get through this. I put a little cradle hole in the middle of that X that I had made with those branches. Yeah, I lined it with branches and that's where I laid for the rest of the time and until I was down, that was it. That was my final resting spot and they found me and I was there all day during the—now this is Sunday, this is already Sunday afternoon, and I can remember the sun was straight out, straight out. It was just, you know, full sun, which is like 12 degrees.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, were you getting any warmth?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that was that was it Is that the sun was on my face to the point where I thought if I did not have that sun directly on my face, I would not have made it. It was my last hurrah as far as the earth keeping me alive, the God keeping me alive, that one piece of sun, sunshine on my face. I didn't feel the sunshine anywhere else. I mean it's 12 degrees, but there was just something about that direct sun on my face that was, I didn't feel the sunshine anywhere else, I mean it's 12 degrees, but there was just something about that direct sun on my face.
Speaker 2:Um, that kept me alive and, by the way, I want to interject because I I to the, to the person that has never experienced cold like that and I'm from, yeah, you know, I lived in oklah, oklahoma, for a long time and I've been in blizzards. I lived in near Chicago at one point, so I know winter can be harsh and in the mountains when it's way below freezing, it's really harsh. And for someone that may be thinking, oh, you know, it was from 8 o'clock to the next day, 11 o'clock not a big deal. You've never been in that kind of situation, a big deal. You've never been in that kind of situation that you can freeze to death very quickly.
Speaker 2:Once that cold weather hit, once that, once you get below freezing and you're not prepared, you're not set up for survival, you can freeze to death very quickly. So for a person lost like that and it's a one hour has to seem like an eternity. So so imagine almost I don't know, I know we're going to get to it almost 24 hours of just being lost in the wilderness, in the mountains, below freezing, no food, no drink, no communicating. That's a long-ass time to be lost. So if you're thinking, oh, that's not that long, if you're in that situation that's an eternity and that's very fatal and you can die very easily and you can lose hope and just freeze to death.
Speaker 1:So I'm sorry, I wanted to interject that, because I know that some of you are getting emotional too.
Speaker 2:People don't realize maybe how can she get so much. That's tough, man. Be in that situation even a few hours and see how hard it is. Lost in the woods for a few hours, not thinking you're going to get out is bad enough, so continue. I just wanted to interject for the audience.
Speaker 4:Yeah, um, they have. You know, I didn't find out until, but the search party for me did not even start until Sunday afternoon. Wow, so and it says it in one of the articles, they did not even start a search party until 1 pm Sunday.
Speaker 2:And I'll post these articles on the. Facebook page and the Instagram page so the audience can read this. Yeah.
Speaker 4:So all afternoon I'm getting that last piece of life $4.50. Pm. Sun's already starting to go down again. Again, I knew I wasn't making it through the second night Cause I mean, I hadn't moved since that morning. Right Um 4, 50 PM I hear a snowmobile and he's there. It's definitely the search and rescue team. They have tracked me from a different direction. They tracked me from the direction that I came. They found my skis where I had taken them off, and then they brought in snowmobiles from the service road that I had heard in the sweetest sound, to know that, oh, someone is actually has.
Speaker 2:They're there that snowmobile? I don't, I don't know about you, but I would have probably thought is it even real, is that even a real thing? But what a relief that had to be like overwhelming. Did you break down? Yes, I'll bet you did. Yeah, I would have too.
Speaker 4:Yeah euphorically broke down.
Speaker 2:So yeah, hope was lost. And now suddenly, yeah, no, I see the emotion. I don't blame you at all. Wow, I'm just reliving. I'm not I wasn't there, but my head. I'm thinking about the fact that you're without hope and suddenly, when it's getting dark, you're like, oh, here we go again. Then you hear a snowmobile and you're like, oh, you just have to be overwhelmed with a positive emotion like, oh, my God, I'm going to be rescued. This is amazing. Wow, what an experience. Continue. I know it's not over yet, but go ahead, yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, that's, that is the, that is the um, 30 hours basically from from you know I mean, if you think about I, wasn't lost that long, but I was out in the exposure in the in the elements from 8.00 AM. Saturdayurday morning to 4 50 pm.
Speaker 2:Sunday night, sunday evening that's a long, I'm telling you. I one time I'm gonna. I'm going to say this I got lost in the mountains. I was hiking with a group. Um, I had my son with me, who was small at the time. I put him on my shoulders and I remember going back on the trail and then I thought, you know, it's kind of what you said you did. I said this is nothing compared to what you had and I said I'm going to take this shortcut because I remember and I got lost in the wood for two and a half hours.
Speaker 2:Now, that's not, that sounds like nothing. But I was like, oh my God, there's, there's things out, there are things out here that, if it gets in it. By the way, it was like four o'clock, so it was getting close to getting dark and I thought if I'm here in the dark with a little kid, I'm in trouble, oh gosh. So fortunately, I heard the stream at some point and I followed the sound and because the stream led right by the cabin we were staying in. But that was only two and a half, three hours, that's nothing, yeah, but that was enough to make me think I'm in trouble. So your experience with wolves, possibly out there too, that could get closer the elements, the, the cold. That's an eternity, sarah.
Speaker 4:That's an eternity to be lost in the mountains and to be saved that way is so, yeah, when I went, when they got me to the hospital, um, in somewhere I forgot, didn't you know, nearest hospital, um, hospital, um. So, for people who have died from hypothermia, okay, you fall in icy water or you get, you're stuck out in the elements too long or whatever Um, when your core body temperature drops below 90, between 85 and 90, some people die and some people live, some people make it, some people live, some people die. When I got to the hospital, my core body temperature was 86. 86. Anything below 85 and you're gone. And my core body temperature was 86.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't have survived the night.
Speaker 4:No, I wouldn't have survived another three hours. I wouldn't have survived the night. No, I wouldn't have survived another three hours. Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't have even gotten to midnight, um. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna fast forward a little bit and go about two weeks out afterwards okay, afterwards Okay. Because this is the really undeniable part of my story and how it was truly divine intervention.
Speaker 2:Can I ask you one thing before you go there? Yeah, what were the physical repercussions of being out there that long?
Speaker 4:Well, I had frostbite on three, four different places on my feet and it wasn't just the black pieces of frostbite, it was that my feet were pretty much frozen up for a few months. So that was the biggest thing. And, of course, the hypothermia. How do they treat that? Whirlpool therapy? Um, you know those like medical whirlpool things? Um, when I got, when I got flown back to Georgia, when they released me out of ICU, they so they, the exes, the abuser's mom paid for me to have, I think, paid for me I think she's the one that paid for it, but they I got a medical transport from that hospital straight to the tarmac of an airport and flew me back home when my mom was waiting for me waiting for me. When I got back home, my mom got started, got me set up and started with chiropractic and massage therapy immediately. So within six months I was pretty much walking normal again.
Speaker 4:I came back in a wheelchair and then I moved up to a walker, wow. And then, um, I was on a cane for a while. I remember that I was on a cane, um, but after I think it like six months or something, I was walking on the cane, yeah, so okay, I just wanted to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wanted to get that, so now we'll go back or we'll go forward two weeks weeks later. Yeah.
Speaker 4:When I came. So yeah, so I'm glad I just kind of filled in those pieces. Is that I spent? I thought I spent four nights in the ICU. When I was rereading the article it says two nights, so maybe I got that confused, I don't know. But I went straight from ICU to the airport. Medical transport, like I said, flew me back home into the arms of my mama and Will said that I'd never talk to him again. So I think that if God would not have removed me physically from the area, I probably would have went back, just like I had already. Um, you know. So anyway, right back into the arms of mama um, but out of the abusive relationship.
Speaker 4:Yes for good yes yeah so I was the first couple weeks, the first. I mean I'd spent years traumatized, okay, ptsd and all that. But the first couple weeks were extremely isolated. I could not leave the bedroom, I couldn't take any phone calls, no visitors, no, nothing. I could not have a conversation with my mom, I could not talk about it, period, there was no details coming out of my mouth, um, and I mean I could barely talk. I was just in severe PTSD, severe traumatized for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 4:Um, so a couple of weeks go by and you know I've got the therapists coming in and out, for they came to my house to do the massage and the um, physical therapy, the chiropractic, all that. So we were having three, four, five times a week in and out. Um, and then I had a friend that would he's family to me, he's like a brother, he's been my friend for my whole life pretty much. He never asked me anything, but he would come over and rub aloe vera stuff into my feet, because that was another part of the treatment, but he would come over and just sit with me and not say anything. So those were my mom and Justin. Those were the only two people that I spoke to at all in the first couple of weeks.
Speaker 4:Okay, after a couple of weeks, my mom comes in the room and says we got a package in the mail and it is the articles from the newspaper. The newspaper sent you the articles. And I was like, oh, and she said, do you, do you want to read through them? And I was like, yeah, you know, um. So I start reading the articles and she's sitting right on, she's sitting right next to me, and I get to the one that says something about you know, initial reports went nowhere. No, you know, search party wasn't looking for her until Sunday. Nobody reported her missing, and all that. And I was like, well, that's not true. I heard the search parties, yeah, and she said um. She said um, she said no, no, nobody was looking for you. And I said, yes, they were.
Speaker 4:I heard the search parties. I had conversations with them back and forth. Mandy was leading them, and she said what? And I said, mandy, amanda was leading the search parties at three different times, you know. And she said, sarah, think about what you're saying. Amanda is in Charleston, amanda's in South Carolina, and I just that was a big reality moment for me. Then she's sitting there. She looks like she's seen a ghost and she says maybe you heard me talking about it with somebody whoever, because Amanda's the one who got the whole search party started on Sunday.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 4:And I said what she said Aunt Karen called me. She said Aunt Karen called me and she said that Amanda now this is why I wish we had Amanda on there, because there's a whole, you know, they just have a whole different point of view. But she said that Amanda needed to talk to me and that she had told her mom she was staying with. Amanda was staying with her mom at the time. So her mom, aunt Karen, calls my mom, my mom calls the guy's mom and gets phone number. It's's hours of back and forth. The reason why is because Amanda had started saying something at 6 o'clock in the morning. I got the details from her a few years later, like the details details. She had had nightmares all night long that her and I were stuck in a pitch black room and now Amanda is one year exactly younger than me I'm the older one, but that I was the one scared to death. And she kept on saying they're going to find us. They're going to know that we're in here. You just got to hold on and be calm and they're going to find us. They're going to know that we're in here. You just got to hold on and be calm and they're going to get us out and she literally had these upsetting, disturbing nightmares all night long. She gets up 6 o'clock in the morning when she hears her mom in the kitchen. She goes straight out and starts telling her mom have we talked to Sarah? Do you have our new number? Do you have any way to get in touch with Sarah? I need to talk with Sarah.
Speaker 4:And this was a whole morning of an event. All these phone calls going back and forth between my cousin in South Carolina, my mom in South Carolina, my mom in North Georgia, his mom in North Georgia, this guy that I had just been estranged from out in Wyoming no cell phones, no, nothing. There's a lot of phone calls going back and forth. And Mandy and he first blew my mom off and said you know, oh, I had been out. I went out to the store. He wasn't going to be home when I got back but he'd leave a note for me or whatever.
Speaker 4:And Amanda just said she had a terrible feeling about his response and that she called back and left a message on his machine that if she didn't hear from me in the next hour, she was calling the cops and she just wanted to let him know in case he wanted to do anything different. That's when he started trying to figure out where I was in town. I'm not really sure how he figured out who I had moved in with, but I know that he was able to get that information within an hour to find out my whereabouts. That's when police went to their door and they told the cops that I hadn't come back home.
Speaker 4:That is when everybody put together that I was missing and that was about, I'm going to say, 11 am on Sunday, maybe 12. And the search got started at 1 pm on Sunday and I mean there's no, no reason. There's no reason for it. There's no reason for it. When she told me what her dreams were and I mean just the fact that you know, here she is 3,000 miles away having nightmares about us, to the point where she's waking up and alarming bells for hours to get someone to get me on the phone and the fact that throughout the night, the search party that I heard was her leading it I mean it's undeniable.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 4:It is.
Speaker 2:I will say, I'll say this For this show the one reason that we put this show together is because a lot of it is, you know, to have something out there for people to listen to. But because I've had so many experiences in my life and I know other people who have that are not explainable necessarily, but they're true, they're out there. And if you think well, that's why we do this podcast is to hear stories, and sometimes you'll have stories come through that are mind blowing. This is one of those. But I will say, if anyone out there, anyone not just listening to this, but anyone thinks that we only live on a physical plane, then you're either in denial or sadly mistaken, because there is more to this life than just what you see physically. There is a spiritual bond between everything. Everything is made up. You have to understand everything is made up of the same material in the end, and everything is connected. The universe is connected. Love, hate all of these emotions also are part of that connection, and sometimes love for people will, I think, signal a warning or send a signal out, almost like a. What's the signal that send out? The SOS signal spiritually, to let someone know that something's either in a dream or just a feeling. I should call this person today anything. This stuff happens all the time.
Speaker 2:So, again, the stories that we hear on this show, the stories that you hear all over the world not just this has to let you know and Sarah's emotional thinking about it and I've had plenty of those experiences myself. We all have, whether we want to admit it or not. And why was she saved? Why was she? Why was she? She could have frozen to death out there, like many people would, but why was she rescued without no ways of communicating? And why did she see and hear a search party? And that was led by her sister who was actually having these dreams about her? A warning, I think so. And enough to where the signal was put out We've got, there's something wrong. And she was rescued in the nick of time, by the way, in the nick of time. That's an amazing story. That's an amazing ending and I can tell you from watching Sarah this is she is, first of all, the story is obviously absolutely true, but the emotion is not fake.
Speaker 2:She is very emotional telling this story because when you have an experience like that, that it maybe not just saves your life, but something that happens, that you can't explain, but it but it's. It makes you see life differently. You never get over that. It makes you see life differently. You never get over that, and watching her tell that story, she's gone back there in her mind. It's like she's reliving it in the now, as it was then. This world is amazing, folks, and if you look around, just understand that what you see physically is not all there is to it. There are other dimensions that we can't see, and I believe there's a God that has created everything, and I believe that everything is connected and I don't care what you believe in. If you don't believe in anything beyond what you see, again you're missing out, you're sadly mistaken and you're wrong. Sarah, thanks for being with us today. Thank you Really for sharing that.
Speaker 3:Thanks so much.
Speaker 2:You got me emotional. Almost that's amazing. So thank you for telling us that story. I know you've never told this to anyone in a setting like this before and we really appreciate it. Thank you so much. We feel privileged that you came and told us, and one day I would like for we've had so many guests so far that just blew our minds and one day I would love to have almost like a big Zoom reunion and talk to so many people about sharing their experiences just in a small forum, to get the perspective from all these different people. We've heard so many stories and we're going to hear many more, but this is yet another good one. So again, thank you, sarah. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. Thanks for checking out the Sonic Hitchhiker podcast. Follow us on Instagram at Sonic Hitchhiker podcast and get new episodes Wednesdays, wherever you get your podcasts.