My name is Adriane and I am advocating any possible financial help for my kind, warm, too-friendly, long-time, amazing friend, Janel Worley.

Janel is currently at Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC. Janel lives in Gainesville, FL and was visiting me to avoid the heat and escape into the sanctuary of the mountains of Western North Carolina. After a tragic hiking accident last Friday night, she lay mostly immobile, in great spirits, with incredible cognition after surviving 8-9 hours in the pitch black darkness of the 50+ degree wilderness at the bottom of a 30 ft ravine until 3 a.m. (actually 7 a.m. until extraction). She lie broken, with no cell service for many miles, in a tank-top, no water, incredibly alone, while search and rescue combed the forest for her. They finally found her at 3 a.m. (after a 911 call at 10:15). That is quite remarkable considering the terrain, the dark hours of the night, and her distance from her original hiking trail. Though she had no cell service, she recorded her “last loving videos” to her loved ones on her phone as she was certain no one would find her and she would perish in the wilderness that night.

Janel was in Asheville visiting me for only 5 days. In the time that she was here, she connected with many people. She has a warmth, an empathic gift, and a hilarious personality that impacted people she JUST MET days before reach out to her after this horrific incident. She is the kind of person who would give the shirt off her back to a stranger, truly. She made the Transylvania Search and Rescue laugh when they found her and they had to secure her for a painful 4-hour extraction. She is known at Mission Hospital as the woman who was rescued at the bottom of a ravine, broken, at 3 a.m., and upon being secured for extraction, a baby black snake fell on her face from a tree above. Transylvania Search and Rescue has enjoyed adding this tidbit to her miraculous rescue story! If she doesn’t laugh, she’ll cry! And we have cried… and laughed… awkward and painful at times, touching, sweet laughter that only those in crisis can understand.

Janel is doing so well cognitively, but unfortunately, she has suffered a spinal cord injury on top of a broken femur, knee cap, and T12 vertebrae. She can’t move her left foot/toes yet.

She is one of the strongest women I know. She already asked PT to push her pain limits for recovery. She wants to get to a spinal cord rehab facility in Jacksonville, FL ASAP. Janel is a single mom and mother to an amazing daughter beginning her second year at UF (starting this Wednesday, which she returned a day late for obvious reasons). I plan to write more details of how her hike went wrong in all the innocent ways, but I’m exhausted. I will add details tomorrow. In the meantime, your generosity and prayers are beyond appreciated. As a single mom, I fear ever having to pay for a single ambulance ride (even after deductible), let alone, a helicopter ride from Brevard to Asheville. Thank you from the top and bottom of our hearts!

*****For those who wish to know more: How did this happen? Why was she hiking alone? Why didn’t I know exactly where she was when I started to feel concerned she had not returned?

When Janel was planning her next waterfall hike on Friday morning, she mentioned hiking to the area of Sliding Rock in Brevard. If you know Janel, she likes to keep options open and I get that. Macy and Janel had hiked to Triple Falls and Hooker Falls the day before; easy hikes, heavily populated, and close to the road. When Macy and I returned from walking our puppy that Friday morning, she had already left. I did not worry at all. Janel called me around 5:00 p.m. while Macy and I were still running errands and her service was very spotty. She was in great spirits, jovial as usual, but our communication was in and out. I remember her saying that she had a 45-minute hike to her car and a 45-minute drive to Asheville. Logic would have her arrive at 6:30. I had a tennis match from 6-7:30 and she never arrived. Macy and I were somewhat disappointed we didn't get to introduce her to our little world of tennis friends.

As the evening progressed, my concern increased with nightfall. I have mountain biked (with lights) and I know how BLACK the forest becomes. I sent her a sweet, but concerned text, to please let me know all is well. I didn't get a response. After 20 minutes and dusk was setting in, I called her phone...straight to voicemail. The chaos of the mind sets in. Was she at TJ Maxx? She had joked about going there again. Is her phone dead and she's heading home, or is she stranded in the forest with no service? Where did she hike? Holy crap, I'm not really sure! After a few more minutes of rationalizing whether a search/rescue response was appropriate, the darkness was setting in. I was now faced with the decision to contact her 19-year-old daughter in Gainesville, FL and WRECK her night to question if her mom happened to text exactly where she went.

Thank God, Janel had texted Cailin that she was going to Slick Rock Falls. I'll spare the emotional details of the call while she was serving tables at a restaurant in Gainesville. Yes, I absolutely wrecked her night. Macy and I hopped in the car at 9:00 p.m. and drove 45 minutes to the trailhead. We noticed we lost service long before we arrived. We had 5 minutes left of our 45 minute commute. It was a desolate, dark, dirt road at 9:45 at night. Several bats hit our windshield and I feared losing service and getting stranded. Macy was deeply uncomfortable to take this route, but we were 5 minutes from the trailhead. I insisted we push through. We had an insane amount of mixed emotions when we found her car with FL plates at the exact trailhead. No longer could we presume she was at TJ Maxx, nor passing us on the commute on her way back home. I needed to call 911. We had zero service. Macy watched the bars on her phone as we drove back to civilization. It was 20 minutes before we arrived at the Pizza Hut in Brevard (a major intersection) and we finally had service to call 911. Our call went through at 10:13 p.m. Within 20 minutes, rescue squads, cops, sheriff deputies, Macy, Ollie, and I raced back out to the trailhead 20 minutes away. Official search and rescue began around 11:00 p.m.

As for Janel's side of the story, she had been friendly (per usual) with other hikers at the waterfall. She had reached her destination and was going to return home, likely without incident. However, several friendly hikers recommended she hike to Looking Glass Rock from there. They said there were several trails to get there from the waterfall. This is the first wrong turn for her. Those hikers had hiking partners, she did not. She was low on water. She naively attempted to find the trails, but never could find ANY trail, including how to get back the waterfall. She persisted to find a trail for about an hour. She arrived back to same spot she was originally lost. She knew she was lost and grew concerned about nightfall. Her intuition told her if she could just cross the more dangerous area, around a ravine, she just knew she could find a road, a human, or a trail. She took off through the unsafe route. She started to fall a few times and was able to stabilize by grabbing onto tree branches. The terrain was thick and she said she got most of her bruises and scratches before the big fall. After a few close calls, she continued, but then the big fall happened. She lost footing and had nothing the grab onto. She hit her head several times on the way down, and though she immediately knew her femur was broken, she was surprised she wasn't knocked unconcious. She couldn't feel her legs for about 10 minutes, but was happy to regain feeling. She lay there until 3 a.m. when she finally heard someone calling her name. She instantly started crying at the sound of her name in the distance. Then she said she screamed the loudest she has ever screamed in her life.

The rescue crews estimate she had fallen around 7 p.m. and she fell about 30 feet. She was found at 3 a.m. and finally out of the forest at 7 a.m. She rode in a helicopter to Mission Hospital, arriving around 7:30 am. The rescue crews risked their lives to get her out and they were just an incredible source of comfort for her. She is forever in debt to their service. Thank you for your prayers.