Missing For 5 Days, Kristin Hopkins Has A Survival Story That Will Blow Your Mind

Kristin Hopkins went missing on Tuesday, April 29. The 43-year-old school administrator had been out driving alone when she failed to show up that day at her home in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Her family filed a missing persons report for her on Tuesday, with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

[Scroll down for updated information on this incredible story.]

But it was a completely baffling mystery. Kristin Hopkins appeared to have vanished into thin air.

Until Sunday.

That’s when some hikers out exploring the 10,000-foot high Red Hill Pass in Park County, about seven miles north of the Fairplay, Colorado, spotted what appeared to be wrecked vehicle well below the shoulder of U.S. Highway 285, high in the Rocky Mountains.

When they came into the Park County Sheriff’s office at about 1:54 pm Sunday, they also reported that they had seen a dead body inside the car.

Someone had apparently gone off the road on the high-altitude pass and plummeted 140 feet to an aspen grove below.

Rescuers arrived on the scene just a few minutes later, and what they found inside the car astounded them. There was a body in there, all right — but not a dead one. The woman inside the overturned vehicle was badly injured and severely dehydrated — but alive.

The woman turned out to be the same person reported missing five days earlier, Kristin M. Hopkins. She survived inside the wrecked vehicle for the entire time. Getting her out of the car took the efforts of several rescue teams. The Park County Sheriff’s Office, Fairplay Police Department, North-West Fire Protection District, Jefferson-Como Fire Protection District, South Park Ambulance and Colorado State Patrol were all part of the intense rescue operation.

But Kristin Hopkins was finally pulled to safety and placed on board a Flight For Life helicopter, which rushed her to St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood. Her condition as of Monday remains has not been announced, though she was initially listed as critical.

While authorities are still investigating exactly what happened, what they’ve been able to piece together so far indicates that the car driven by Kristin Hopkins somehow left the road and plunged 140 feet down to the aspen grove below, flipping over several times as it plummeted.

How Kristin Hopkins survived the crash is miracle enough. How she stayed alive for five days inside the wrecked vehicle is stunning. But during that time, she was conscious enough to try to attract rescuers. She had an umbrella that she was able to extend outside of the car, trying to signal passers-by.

“It appeared she had written notes on an umbrella, that she could get out of the vehicle and open the umbrella, hoping somebody from the highway would see it,” Firefighter Jim Cravener told a local TV station, describing the remarkable Kristin Hopkins survival story.

UPDATE: On Monday, the family of Kristin Hopkins issued a statement, revealing that after her ordeal, though she is expected to survive, doctors were forced to amputate both of her feet.

Her Chevy Malibu, investigators said, flew 120 feet off the embankment the rolled another 200 feet.

“What hope she had, what her drive was, we don’t know,” one firefighter, Josh Thompson, told ABC News. “But there was something there that kept her hanging on and fighting.”

Kristin Hopkins is a single mom with four kids. One of the notes she scrawled in Sharpie on an umbrella read, “six days no water no food.”