Woman Stranded In Car Crash For 5 Days Will Lose Her Feet

A Colorado woman survived 5 days stranded in her car after it crashed in a rural highway located southwest of Denver.

Kristin Hopkins, 43, was driving a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu when she was last seen on April 27 in Fairplay, an old mining town. She was reported as a missing person, but authorities suspected no foul play, as she is an adult. No active searches were made to find the missing woman.

Little did everyone know that Hopkins had an accident and has been stranded in her car for 5 days. She wrote a message for help on a white and red umbrella that she pushed through one of the car’s broken windows, desperately hoping for someone to pass the highway above and see her plea. On the umbrella, she wrote “no food, no water; please help me; need a doctor.”

Hopkins struck multiple trees in the area and her car rolled several times, landing on its top. The vehicle fell 80 feet down in the Colorado aspen grove.

A few days after the car crash happened, someone spotted her flipped car and alerted the authorities that there was an accident and a body was still inside the car. The rescuers who responded to the scene found the woman alive and conscious, but badly dehydrated and severely injured.

One of the rescuers, firefighter Jim Cravener, asked one of his colleagues to break a car window, and to his surprise, Hopkins reached out with her hand. Cravener did not expect the woman to be alive. “She really had a strong will to survive,” he said.

Hopkins was still responsive and used the little energy she had to tell the rescuers that she was not hurt. However, the rescuers could clearly see the bruises that had already formed on her face. As Hopkins was lifted from the scene, she became less responsive and rescuers had to constantly wake her up.

Hopkins was brought to St. Anthony Hospital in suburban Denver via a helicopter and was treated for the injuries she sustained in the car crash. She was in critical condition by the time she reached the hospital.

According to her family, she is expected to survive the horrible accident, but she will be losing both her feet due to injures she got from the impact of the crash.

Reports from investigators said that the accident occurred the same day Hopkins was reported missing in her hometown of Douglas County.

Hopkins’ family released a statement, thanking the man who found her.

[Image via Boston Globe]