E8: Transcending Tragedy in the Wilderness with Emily Henkel
What happens when the worst-case scenario unfolds in slow motion in the desolate wilderness of America's National Parks? How do you return to the places that have brought so much joy and so much pain after tragedy strikes?
On April 3, 2021, Emily and her partner, Alexander Lofgren, traveled to Death Valley National Park on a routine camping trip. The next day began the biggest nightmare of their lives - Alex fell from a 70’ cliff and succumbed to his injuries a half hour later. Emily suffered severe injuries while down-climbing the cliff to his aide, but was able to comfort him as he took his final breaths. Unfortunately, this would be the first of six days she had to survive alone, next to the love of her life, on this desolate cliffside until she was found and rescued. Later in 2021, the Alexander Lofgren Veterans in Parks act was passed, and now, thanks to the legislation Alex was working on before his passing, Veterans and Gold Star families have access to the National Parks for life. In this episode, we'll hear about the accident, the physical and emotional recovery Emily has endured since, the vision she has for keeping Alex's legacy alive, how she found the strength and courage to return to the scene of the accident, and her intentions for utilizing the healing power of nature as she continues her recovery.
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
At 29 years old, Emily Henkel has endured more tragedy than most her age, but she is alive to tell the tale and determined to endure and inspire for the remainder of her days on Earth. On April 3, 2021, Emily and her partner, Alexander Lofgren, traveled to Death Valley National Park on a routine camping trip. The next day began the biggest nightmare of their lives - Alex fell from a 70’ cliff and succumbed to his injuries a half hour later. Emily suffered severe injuries while down-climbing the cliff to his aide, but was able to comfort him as he took his final breaths. Unfortunately, this would be the first of six days she had to survive alone, next to the love of her life, on this desolate cliffside until she was found and rescued. In the 20 months since, Emily tells the tale of all the highs and lows, wins and losses, grief, trauma, and how she intends to utilize nature to continue her healing in the most profound of ways.
IN THIS EPISODE:
How did Emily + Alex meet?
What were they looking forward to?
What happened after they realized they were stranded?
How did she survive six days on a cliff before her rescue?
What is she looking forward to in 2023 and beyone?
CONNECT WITH EMILY:
LISTEN HERE:
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Please note, we use Otter.ai to transcribe episodes and while the technology is impressive, it’s not completely accurate. Please excuse any missed words, nonsensical sentences, and missed interpretations of foreign language below:
Announcer 00:00
Since 1984, Sawyer has existed to support your wildest adventures. Learn about their advanced insect repellents and family of technical Lightweight Water filters at Sawyer.com. Welcome to Wellness in the Wilderness. Come with us on the trail of life as we inspire you to take a step outdoors to disconnect from the distractions and reconnect with yourself. Sydney Williams in her guests will motivate you to get active and get well. Now, here is Sydney.
Sydney Williams 00:37
Welcome to Wellness in the Wilderness. I'm your host, Sydney Williams, author and founder of Hiking My Feelings and today I am broadcasting live from the ancestral lands of the Tongva people now known as Avalon, California, we moved here last week, and it's pretty epic. Like there's a lot of things changing all at once we went from living in a van for four plus years to moving into an apartment, we went from living on nine acres with four other people to moving to an apartment where there's 4000 people, which still is like a really small town like this is not big at all, I can walk clear across the town of Avalon and about five minutes. So it's not like a move into some big metropolis, right. But it's just there's a lot of things changing at once all good, including the weather, which has been like I didn't realize how much I need sunshine in my life. And like the two or three days of sunshine we've had since we got here, like I go outside and I'm like, There it is, oh, it has risen another day. It's like it feels kind of dramatic. But I guess that's kind of how life goes when things are in transition. So thank you for joining me here on Wellness in the Wilderness this week. Before we get started with our guest today, I wanted to share a presencing and processing tip. If you missed our episode last week, I was talking about how I've been thinking about something that Natalie Small said on her interview about Groundswell Community Project and the surf therapy program that she runs. And she was talking about how presencing is like just being in your body and not necessarily verbalizing or talking or communicating. But just like being in the moment, paying attention to what's happening in your body. And processing is more like we're going around the circle, we're talking about our feelings, and how those two single terms kind of unlocked everything that we do at Hiking My Feelings in a new way for me. So we've started to include some tips in our wellness, wellness in the wilderness newsletter, which you can get on Mondays, if you subscribe to Hikingmyfeelings.org/wellness. So the tips this week are really it's a combo deal. You're welcome. It's the first three questions that I asked myself. It's from the book. So when you start feeling feelings, or if you are also going through a big transition, it's a new year, maybe you're starting a new job, maybe you're like, oh my god, this is the year that I actually do what I want to do with my life, and I stopped living up to the expectations of other people, I don't know. But if you find yourself feeling some stuff, and you're like, What the heck and you feel overwhelmed, much like I have, for most of this week. A grounded overwhelm is what I would explain my current situation as first things first, what are you feeling, call it what it is, it gives you an opportunity to reflect. If you don't have the language for it. If you aren't familiar with what this feeling is, or you aren't sure where it comes from it just you just are aware that the physical sensation is uncomfortable? That's fine. You don't need to have a name for it. If so, skip to number two, where do you feel it in your body, that gives us an opportunity to start paying attention to the cues our body is sending us which will help us strengthen our mind body connection. And lastly, having felt this before, because if you have if you know what you're feeling and you know where you feel it in your body, and you're starting to strengthen that mind body connection then over time, you can start to think about where these things come from. If it's a good feeling, do more of the things that contribute to that feeling. If you like being around certain people or certain places make you feel joyous, like the outdoors, I don't know. Spend more time there spend more time with those people. If you're like, Wow, I feel absolutely depleted every time I go to this place or I talk to this person, maybe started thinking about establishing some boundaries. I don't know it might be the best thing that ever happened to you. But first things first, what are you feeling? Where do you feel it in your body? And have you felt this before? That is our processing and presencing tip. It's kind of a two for one combo because you're spending time paying attention to your body and you're also thinking about where these feelings came from and start to connect the dots. So you're welcome. Enjoy. Today's guest, guys. First and foremost, I if you haven't read my book yet, there is a person who I miss dearly and his name is Chris Atencio. Who here we go. And tomorrow is the eighth year. Wow. Eight, nine year anniversary of his passing. And he was a high intelligence officer. US Army veteran spoke like seven different languages was like the guy on the ground that makes friends with the locals to get all the intel that everybody could ever need and he was just like the brightest light in every room he walked into and on tomorrow, January 18th, 2014 He took his own life and today's guest is somebody who, if I when not if when I have the chance to hike with in person, I will probably absolutely soil the ground with the tears that come out of my face because the work that Emily Henkel is doing on behalf of her late partner Alexander Lofgren, who we will talk all about in detail today. Spoiler alert, the reason that US Army or all military veterans in the US and Goldstar families have free access for life to the National Parks is because of Alex and we'll talk about who Alex was, how he lit up Emily's life and the life of the people around him as we keep going, but tomorrow is a very big kind of anniversary death aversary. For me, it was like the first domino to fall in 2014 that led to some pretty radical changes in my life and kind of put me on the path that I'm on today without really knowing it at the time. So all of which is to say if I make it through this episode without crying, I'm not going to like celebrate that because like tears are cool and crying is a great way to move energy through my body. I'm just warning you that might happen. So let's stop messing around and get into it.
Today's guest is Emily Henkel, and at 29 years old Emily has endured more tragedy than most her age, but she is alive to tell the tale and determined to endure and inspire for the remainder of her days on Earth. On April 3, 2021, Emily and her partner Alexander Lofgren travelled to Death Valley National Park on a routine camping trip. The next day began the biggest nightmare of their lives, Alex fell from a 70 foot cliff and succumbed to his injuries. About half an hour later, Emily suffered severe injuries while down climbing to the cliff to his aid, but was able to comfort him as he took his final breaths. Unfortunately, this would be the first of six days that she had to survive alone next to the love of her life on a desolate cliffside until she was found and rescued. And the 20 months since Emily tells the tale of all the highs and lows wins and losses grief trauma, and how she intends to utilize nature to continue her healing in the most profound of ways. Like I said, Today, we'll be chatting with Emily about how she survived this accident and Death Valley National Park the physical and emotional recovery that followed, and how she found the strength to return to the places that carry some of the most beautiful and painful memories she's ever experienced. Okay, we can do this, everybody deep breath in. Here we go. And out. Emily, welcome to the show. Nice to have you here.
Emily Henkel 07:27
Thank you very much. To me. It's wonderful to be here. It's an honor. Thank you.
Sydney Williams 07:32
Yes. Oh, my goodness. I was like, Okay, first of all, the startup music for the show always makes me cry a little bit, because we have friends that allowed us to use this music without like, before it is been released, like, the music is called Green Hills from our friends, Alific and Man of the Forests on violin, it makes me get teared up every time. And then I thought about how impactful this conversation is gonna be and I think like, and I'm not saying this to make you feel bad about yourself, because you shouldn't. But I think it speaks to the volume of how much I respect you and your journey and how excited I am to have this conversation with you like I have been anxious about this. And not in a bad way. But in a this I know the potential impact that this conversation could have for anybody that's listening and whoever might find it down the road. And it's a conversation that I wish I had had access to not because what happened to Alex and what happened to Chris are the same. But knowing that what happened for as a result of Alex's hard work, if that benefit had been available to Chris, Chris might not have taken his own life. So I don't I, I take this conversation very seriously, while also acknowledging that it's not all sadness and despair, like you're still here, you've survived it and you're able to take such a tragic story and share it in a way that has the potential to radically change the world and in some ways already has because of the access of veterans and Goldstar families now have to the wilderness. So all of all of that is to say I'm really, really glad you're here. Thank you for making the time to sit with me and chat. And I'd love to kind of just chat about your life leading up to the accident. And let's start with like, how did you and Alex meet?
Emily Henkel 09:22
Yeah, sure. So, Alex, and I met kind of like halfway through my year long volunteer commitment at the veteran nonprofit that I worked for in Phoenix, I was living in Arizona at the time soc. And he was hired on as a caseworker on the Veterans Crisis Line at like a sister organization. So we'd occasionally cross paths at meetings and events. And you know, over time, we'll really immediately we just both felt each other's energies from meeting on day one and just knew we had to get to know each other more. And there was like a special entry that we had towards each other that we just had to know more so before either of us knew it, we were just spending every possible moment together and making, just having the most memorable of times and growing as our little blended family by me with my dog Jane and him with his dog Gunner and, you know, building our life from there.
Sydney Williams 10:14
Hmm. And when you guys were planning out this trip that included Death Valley National Park, what were some of the things that you were looking forward to whether that's your life together the trip itself, like what was what was the future kind of looking like for Alex and Emily?
Emily Henkel 10:34
Well, really limitless. Thinking about our future, like everything about it was limitless. You know, and in terms of the the immediate trip, like we were always looking for a new adventure and a new place to go and a new place to see a new, you know, a new blanket of stars to sleep under a new environment to sleep in. So the trip itself, we were just looking forward to visiting another national park together, and another just be out in nature together, which was definitely where we thrived and where we grew. And nature itself just kind of built a relationship and built us each to individually but also together. So we were just doing what we absolutely love, we were looking forward to, you know, we always anytime we go to a new place, we spend like the week before, however long on Google Maps, and searching and doing research and looking at articles and things, seeing what like the best spots are and so we were just looking forward to just what we normally do make the drive on, like, you know, the National Park Drive, and see some of the sights to see. But we were at a place in our lives where we were talking about children we were talking about, or at least a child, we were talking about buying a house in Tucson where we live. So that's when I mean like our future was and everything about us was kind of limitless like we were so looking forward to absolutely everything we just had so much to look forward to. And we had like a giant list of things that we wanted to do together and we were excited to accomplish it. Death Valley being one of the things
Sydney Williams 12:12
Nice and how did you guys land on Death Valley? I mean, for folks that aren't familiar, it's not exactly the kindest climate of the national parks that you can choose to visit. it gets wicked hot there. So how did you decide on Death Valley?
Emily Henkel 12:27
um, knowing the time of year, so it was April when we went so it was still a little extreme during the week. But you know, it was averaging maybe 95 during the week. Still hot, but we just went because it was a no good time of year. And it was kind of out of the way it's not very few easily accessible, like as opposed to Saguaro National Park, which we lived right next to. But we had a long weekend, it was Easter weekend, and we were going to go visit Alex's parents out in California, they live in the Mojave Desert. So it was a perfect opportunity to drop off the dogs with them and then just kind of have our own, which rarely ever happened a trip without the dogs. But just our own little opportunity to visit and check off yet another national park off our books.
Sydney Williams 13:15
All right, so we're in Death Valley, you're getting ready for an adventure. And what happens like what, what was the thing that kind of started this, this situation that ended in a rescue.
Emily Henkel 13:31
So to keep it somewhat short, like we started off, you know, doing what we always do, we went to the visitor center, we got our maps, we got our little souvenirs always felt like a little bit one of too many. A little bit of posters, a little bit of stickers, you know what I mean? So we did our usual thing we talked to the park ranger, we got an idea where we wanted to spend the evening because we had our back country park passes. And we were going to spend the night under the stars. We've never slept in a national park before. So we've got recommendations as to where to go. So we took off we explore the park a bit. And at some point, we were going to go look for our camping spots. So we were on a backcountry road, an established one when all of a sudden a very inconspicuous rock on the side of the road. I guess slit both of my passenger side tires, just making like an explosive sound, immediately knowing that it was it was extremely problematic. So and it was absolutely a irrepairable, you couldn't repair it. They were completly sliced. And we were 30 miles at least from the nearest civilization. So we knew at that point, it was extremely dire and we were stuck. So that's what kind of started at all. And then we kind of from there went to we went that was the first moment we went into survival mode and we realized it was extremely dire. We were in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Are when you're that far in the desert. You know, no one's no one's expecting us to be, you know, we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. And we're, we're supposed to be in the park, no one's waiting for us. You know, like, we weren't overdue at this point. So no one's gonna find us. And we are so in, in such a location where, you know, no one's gonna run run across our car. That ended up being true. No one ran across our car until Thursday, you know, like five days after Alex died five days after anything ever happened. So we spent the entire afternoon entire evening planning and thinking through every aspect of what we could possibly do on what's safest. And what's what makes the most sense, looking at our maps, looking for cell service nearby, staying out of the sun, just preserving energy preserving water, everything that we knew how to do, studying the topographic maps we had. And that's when we ultimately decided you know, the next day, only to do a short little jaunt down the road, on an established trail on an established road that we had seen on the map to see if by chance we could run into anybody. And you know, ultimately, we didnt. But that was the whole goal. And we figured that's going to be kind of our best bet. And really, ultimately, it ended up you know, that's when we were hiking down this canyon, we went through a mountain pass very aware that it was could be treacherous. We knew it could be we knew that elevation changes were a thing. Alex was an Army vet, he knew what he was looking at in terms of reading the topographic map. So we were aware, and ultimately, a few hours into our hike. And as soon as the sun was starting to come up, because we left at four in the morning, we wanted to preserve, you know, be as safe as we could. And that's when he lost his grip and ended up falling. When we reached his cliffside that we were not, we knew we weren't going to be able to pass. But he lost his footing. And he slipped and he fell. As soon as we were thought about it, as soon as we were going to stop and turn around and wait out the heat of the day. So that was the beginning of just six days of absolute hell, and what ultimately led to my six days of survival and being with him until he took his last breath and suffering severe injury on my end, shuffling to try malleolar fracture. So Wow, there's so many details that goes into it, but in a super, super condensed manner. If that kind of makes sense. That's how it kind of came about.
Sydney Williams 17:34
Yeah, well, for what we're gonna get ready to jump to a break here pretty quickly. But when we get back we'll talk about the six days of survival, the rescue itself and how you started to recover both physically and emotionally from this accident. We'll be right back with Emily Henkel. Don't go anywhere.
Announcer 17:55
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Sydney Williams 20:39
All right, welcome back to Wellness in the Wilderness. I'm Sydney Williams and I've been chatting with Emily Henkel, who has quite the story we were leaving off before the break, she was talking about how they her and her partner Alex were in Death Valley National Park, and they experienced two flat tires, they took the rest of the day and through the night to plan they woke up early doing everything they could to beat the heat to preserve their energy. And right before they were getting ready to sit down and wait out the heat of the day. Alex wanted to make one last little check on this one little place. And then he fell. So Emily, let's pick up where we left off. So Alex has fallen he lost his footing. And you're going like was there instructions to come down and get him like how did what were what happened like I just can't even formulate sentences thinking about whatever the situation so takeover.
Emily Henkel 21:33
Even being there, it's still near impossible to actually wrap my head around what happened and how I managed to just function and continue to survive through it all. But so after after Alex's fall, I did everything I could to like try to help them because I had I was in for I was right in front of him I was feet away from him. And there was nothing I could do at all at all I could do is sit and watch in horror and I was he when he landed he was he was conscious. And he was calling for help. And I knew that there was absolutely nothing and nowhere that I needed to be other than by his side. So with my backpack secured on my back, I immediately rushed to the opposite side of the cliff where we had identified like this angled crack that was just big enough, or at least ended at least enough of an incline to squeeze my body into and down climb as far as I possibly could, as Alex called for me and called for help. I made it about halfway down until I was met with no more holds nothing to hold on to. And my own, like 30 foot drop. And I was absolutely terrified, but also had the sense of like fearlessness that kind of allowed me to get down to the love of my life who was struggling to breathe and in and inconceivable amount of pain on this rocky rugged ground that he'd fallen to. So my one and only mission, no matter what else was happening was going to make it to Alex's side. So that is what I did. I went to the crack, I dropped my I reached that spot, I dropped my backpack, and I just let go. It all happened so fast. But the next thing I knew I was sitting at the bottom of this vertical wall that I had fallen from pain, just panging through every single part of my body with 1 million thoughts running through my mind, and it's frantically trying to understand what happened. You know, something felt strange about my feet. And that's when I looked down to see my ankle, my leg bent at just a nauseating angle, my left foot. So my cry is kind of joined Alex as at that point, just apologizing and agonizing. Because I knew at that point, now I was extremely limited to how much I could actually help and move myself. So my only goal was to make him as comfortable as possible to feel as loved as possible. And it was pretty clear to me and him that his time was super limited. And his body was just kind of failing by the second and but I always thought, you know, there 30 minutes that he was alive, I was fighting as if there was even an ounce of hope of saving him. But, you know, there I just didn't think there was anything that could possibly exist without him like Life couldn't exist without him. We were supposed to be together forever. So you know, he took his last breath after about 30 minutes and succumbed to his injuries. And it was only like 9:30am at this point. We we had been five hours, five hours since we left the car. And I'd lived an entire lifetime between those times. I'd see my entire life basically, end. and after that point, like it was just it was just me. It was just me and I was panicked and frantic. The day was a blur, but I had no idea I was going to make it through as good as far as possible away from him. I just didn't know what to do. And I was scared the situation was incomprehensible. The cliff was only like 25 by 30 feet, so I was going to be trapped regardless. And I realized like, despite, even if my ankle was severely severely broken, I wasn't there was nowhere to go, I was surrounded by two hundreds of feet, vertical walls on the left and right side of me. The 70 foot cliff with behind us that we fell from in front of us, was probably 100 Plus foot, Cliff, vertical. So I was not going anywhere. And I just had to wrap my head around absolutely everything that was happening. So just really the entire time I was just, I was trapped. And I just remember the constant battle with the Sun, and the feeling of being exposed and the feeling of agony, and just the feeling of absolute helplessness. And it was just every part of it was surreal. Let's see, is there anything what else did you know?
Sydney Williams 26:00
That's, I mean, ask about Wow, no, I mean, that's that what that's huge. So you're there. Now you're trying to figure out how to wrap your head around one the last that just happened, but two your survival? What, what ultimately ended up resulting in your survival? How did you get rescued? It kind of blows me away thinking about the things that I happen to think of in those moments. You know, the the times when I thought that my brain would just absolutely shut off, because how, like, how can you survive? How can you even function? After witnessing this? How can you even function at all, and be alive when he wasn't? Up until like his last breath? Like I was telling myself, there's no, absolutely no way I can do this, like, I'm not going to be able to live without him. And then there was something shortly after he passed that I'm just like, I got so much determination, and so much, just strength built up somehow that I was going to get us out of there, no matter what it took. I think mental fortitude is the number one thing that helped get through it. And it's weird because I we had watched like one season one singular season Alone. And we always were able to pick out, like, who's going to make it to the end because we're like the mental fortitude of these people that are the ones that with the best attitude, the ones with the will to do it the will to survive. They're gonna make it. The ones that make a game out of it. And they're like dancing while they're catching fish, right?
Emily Henkel 27:31
Like we had such there were so many good memories, just watching that. And we just we loved watching shows like that together. So that one show ended up being a huge reason why I thought of most of the things that I did. The mental fortitude being the most important one, I think. But I knew it. I didn't have time. Like I didn't have time to think about anything other than surviving because I knew as I was, like, curled up against the wall, after I had, like, moved away from Alex. I just I don't even know I don't know what happened. I was in shock. I don't know what was happening. So I realized like, the sun was coming up. And the was tucked against was like eastward facing. So when one about 1pm came around every day, my shade slowly and just menacingly slipped away, revealing the horrible blaring sun, because like I said before, before our break that it's reaching like 95-100 degrees during the day in April. So it's still terrible. So from that moment, I immediately found a thought that maximized my time out of the direct sun. And there was no possibility of building a shelter. I knew just somehow on the top of my head of like, oh, shelter, fire, food, water. Shelter was not a possibility I was on a tiny cliff, no vegetation, except for like one dead tree, and rocks. So without the possibility of like any materials or any, any ability to move on my end ability to use my leg or walk. I searched my bag for something to protect me. And that's when I found my emergency blanket. So for six days, I slept basically under a piece of aluminum foil. But that alone, it wasn't one of those fancy ones. It was like literally any movement just made it rip that but that I had to preserve that no matter what because that was my shelter. And that is it. It kept me out of the sun during the day and kept me warm at night because the temperature would drop about 50 degrees from the middle of the day to the middle of the night and it was absolutely frigid desert 50 way different than any other 50 degrees. It's absolutely horrible. So you know, I just I told myself that I can do literally impossible things i can do hard things I had told myself that over and over and over again, I had just finished Glennon Doyle's book Untamed. So that was like the first thing that came to mind. I'm like, Emily, dude, you can do this, you can do hard things, you can do impossible things. And we are going to make it out what by whatever means necessary. So, I don't know that mental place that you go is absolutely horrifying. Like after knowing that, you're likely going to die, and you're leaving it completely up to the universe to be found. There's nothing I can do. I mean, I could, I screamed, I blew, I had emergency whistle. I was blowing it constantly preserving my voice as much as I could, but blowing it so it echod through the canyon, anything I could think of. But just the thought of like, knowing that anything could happen, I was out in the elements completely. You know, whether I died of starvation or by a flash flood flowing through the canyon, it was April, you know, spring showers happen. And that would send me over the edge of the 100 foot cliff in front of me or have bite from a scorpion or rattlesnake or heat stroke or hypothermia, all these things are running through my head, or infection. Because I'll during the fall, my whole hand was just totally battered and bleeding and all just open. So I was worried about 100 million things. So it was just a complete waiting and guessing game if like death or a rescue crew was going to find me first. So I just laid down and I breathed through my pain and stared at the sky. And I think my body just tried to protect me and just went into just deep states of unconsciousness, I probably like slept 80% of the time that I was there just to preserve those, the mental and physical trauma that I endured up to that point. So, because of the rocks around me, I knew that shelter needed to happen, and really didn't do anything for me other than just give me some peace of mind. I kind of like built this foot, one foot tall rock structure around me and it just kind of prevented kept my eyes in one direction towards the sky or towards the wall to my left. Now Alex was Alex's right next to me. And there's there was nothing I could do. And it was still too surreal. And I didn't I didn't know how to process it. And I didn't know how to make it. So I felt safe in this little nook that I made myself. So when the when the sun started going over the cliff and exposing me completely to the sun. Those were the absolute worst parts of the day. It was just an absolute living nightmare. And I was in an actual human oven, human sized oven in that canyon. So once that sun rose around 1pm, I was I had only minutes left of shade, so I always looked forward to those. So I guess after the nighttime, when it was freezing cold, I would really look forward to the first few minutes of sunlight as it started to come up because it was warm after shivering the entire night. But, you know, that was also the worst part of the day I had from like I had six hours of the day just with direct blistering sun. So I had crawled a few feet to my right and built a tiny little dam because somehow absolutely miraculously, we were in an area that had some trickling spring water. There was a waterfall. And I guess that could be one of the place. One of the reasons that we chose that way because you know, chose that way to go when we were looking for help. Every other way was absolutely exposed. No vegetation no nothing this way. Yes, the topographic map indicated some elevation changes, which we were aware of. But then again, we also saw a spring on the map. So that ended up being an absolute saving grace probably saved me from heatstroke I would spend before the sun fully came blaring down on me I would just douse myself and water, my head, my clothes. And I would crawl back to my emergency blanket and my rock shelter and just sit there. And I would just try to make it through. If I was lucky, I could just my brain would shut off I just fall asleep and make it through the worst part of the day. And you know that also helped when I ran out of water. I ran out of water on Wednesday like only four days in Alex and I had both packed at least like three liters of water each. His I had to retrieve from him. The day after he fell. I had to do anything that I could to survive. And I knew that the supplies that he had on him was also just as was vital if I wanted to make it out if I wanted to get us out. I needed that. So when that ran out, after just very very sparingly drinking little sips each day like just enough to stay alive. Hopefully to stay alive, I ran out, but we had that waterfall. And so I had to take the chance like that was my only way. So I would probably go back to the waterfall and it was only a tiny pool and it was just enough water to trickle down and fill up my Osprey hydration bladder. And that just that ended up saving me I would not have been able to go another day in that sun without the water. You know that desert sun that Death Valley sun just takes it sucks every bit of moisture from your body. So it ended up being I wasn't sure if it's going to be bacteria if had bacteria in it a parasitic but I had that 50/50 chance it's going to be okay. Am I going to live? Or is this gonna kill me faster? Thankfully, it was okay. I could stomach it. And not just that, that one source of water was just absolutely life. Life giving,
Sydney Williams 27:31
literally life giving.
Emily Henkel 36:01
literally life giving.
Sydney Williams 36:01
So what was the before we jumped to the break? What was in like a sentence or two? What was the function? After all of that finding this water building your shelter having this emergency blanket? What was the impetus to your rescue was there? Did you have a Garmin that you activated SOS for? Did your family expect you to come home and then you weren't home? And they called and then they sent a search party like what what happened that led to your rescue?
Emily Henkel 36:30
Well, it started we were supposed to be back and we had a definitive wich, normally this isn't how our trips went. Like we always sent my itinerary to family and friends. But this time we actually had like someone to go back to Alex's parents and Alex's family for Easter dinner on that Sunday, April 4. We didn't show up. And a lot of they were kind of questioning and my family was questioning Okay, well, maybe they just extended the trip. You know, a lot of people most people thought that we just ended up going away and like eloping somewhere. when we didn't arrive that night. When we still didn't arrive the next day. Family friends, my friends, Alex's friends and my parents all were like okay, something is wrong. They call the police and the search party ensued from there but keep in mind Death Valley National Park is 3.4 million acres of desolate nothing landscape. I am regretfully obviously did not have a Garmin inReach which I do now. It was in our cart. You know, it was just one of those things that we didn't. We didn't weren't sure that we need one of the pool like the trigger on the $400. But obviously, I would pay that times 1 million to give, you know, to have life back. So we did not have that. But ultimately, that's how we ended up getting third party started. And that's how they was found six days later.
Sydney Williams 37:51
Wow. All right. Well, when we come back from the break, we'll talk with Emily about how she was able to start her physical and emotional recovery and a bright shiny spot that happened in the midst of this tragedy, which was the Alexander Lofgren Veterans in Parks Act so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.
Announcer 38:13
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Sydney Williams 40:58
All right, everybody. Welcome back. I'm Sydney Williams. This is Wellness in the Wilderness. And I'm here with Emily Henkel, who was just telling us about her harrowing six days on a teeny tiny Cliff surrounded by big tall walls and another cliff in front of her and a big wall behind her and all the things she had to do to survive. And while some people might think this is a story about preparedness, sure, there's always things that we would love to think Hindsight is 2020. Those goggles are so clear when we wear them and look backwards. But ultimately, they had plenty of water, they left the note on their car, they did what they needed to do, they were going early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day. Sometimes Shit happens. And it sounds like this is one of those stories where shit just happened. And while yes, you should be prepared. And yes, there are lots of things that you can do to be prepared. It's not like these folks are going out there with no knowledge whatsoever. Alex was a US Army veteran. Emily was his adventure buddy, who was also a prepared person of the outdoors experience. And so I think one of the things that I want to focus on Emily is now that so we'll kind of skip ahead a little bit. You've been rescued, I'm sure the vision like you took there's a picture if you guys haven't seen Emily's Instagram, we'll include a link in the show notes where there's a picture that you took of the rescue helicopter real quickly, real quickly. And I don't want to like minimize the joy and this triumphant moment. But I do want to share a part of the recovery. So folks who might find themselves in a similar situation, either losing a partner during an adventure and or sustaining an injury, and then trying to find the courage and the strength and the resilience to return to these spaces that have brought so much joy but also create and carry tremendously painful memories. Real quickly for the folks that are listening. What was that moment like between seeing that helicopter and getting the care that you needed to heal the physical and emotional wounds that you had endured on this incident.
Emily Henkel 43:08
So I have a really interesting relationship with like helicopters now. So for me, it obviously was the most euphoric and most just incredible moment knowing that thing that helicopter meant that I was going to live. I had made it, they saw me, I saw them and I was going to make it out. And I was going to live and I was going to get out of there. And I don't I didn't even know what that meant in terms of, you know, Alex and I just, I just wanted out for us. I knew it was for us. So, seeing that helicopter, which actually they found my car on the fifth day on Thursday, April 8, they found the note and after they found the note and the car and the emergency contacts and the information that we provided. They found us very quickly. But you know, the helicopter, the propellers were filling that entire Canyon. I heard it coming. It was just absolutely thunderous going through that canyon and my heart and my chest and my stomach just dropped, but also the immense amount of euphoria it was just overwhelming. But that helicopter had to turn around. They left me. Now they just had some apparently they had some mechanical issues. But that was a whole other mental hurdle to get over. Seeing it realizing that I was I was done I was gonna get out there I was safe, but they left and they didn't come back for 24 hours until they could get like a new crew and safely conduct this rescue. Because I was not in an ideal place to the canyon was too narrow for the propellers and the rope was just too short to get across like to my ledge So, it, it was just absolutely euphoric seeing it. And, you know, for everyone else for my parents, I guess for my family, you know, helicopter was just such a nice freeing feeling for them. But for me, hearing a helicopter seeing a helicopter shout out to PTSD was anytime like my heart stops I just no matter where I am like because it just it indicates to me leaving Alex behind leaving this place where half of me died leaving just the most the worst part of my entire life behind not even behind just it's hard to it's hard to explain it's hard to wrap my head around, but that's, you know, kind of what that was about. And then you said something about the healing recovery.
Sydney Williams 45:47
Yeah, so tell us about what it was like to start moving through the recovery process like what what were the physical injuries and how did you start to recover from those?
Emily Henkel 45:58
that part every every part of it, every part of this journey story is just is absolutely wild. I was brought straight to Ridgecrest Regional Hospital a tiny tiny little town tiny little ER, in Ridgecrest, California. Um, no, I couldn't have any surgery or anything immediately because of the intense swelling. And, you know, I had been on it already for six days completely broken, you know, recovery and everything. Basically, it just had seemed it seemed exhausting, exhausting, and kind of never ending. But I also kind of expect it. I see the positive in it, I can't believe that I still have my foot. I still can't believe that my surgeon in Ohio did such an incredible job repairing it and getting me back on my feet, literally. But over time, there's a lot of things that have come about since then. The prominent thing at the time was my foot that is literally black and blue from my toes to my shin, the bottom my knee. But I also learned, you know, I sprained my right foot. I have pain in my right foot all the time. I paint on my left foot all the time. I joke with my surgeon at times that I just would love a quick amputation and just take care of it. But no, obviously. Not necessarily. That's just like me being in my grumpiest days, I learned I had a compression fracture in my spine, which really didn't show up until well, we didn't really look at anything else because that wasn't I don't know, my my leg over shattered everything else. So I have like kind of debilitating back pain, back pain a lot of times happens like once every month or so and just causes the horrible pain. I can't stand I can't sit sciatica. But it's a long and never ending process. Like I I feel like I am constantly just beginning healing. It feels like the weight of shock has just lifted it feels like one chapter of grief has lifted and now I met with another one. And it's it's really again, like anything else is really hard to explain. But it is a it is a constant battle. Like never no part of it is easy. No part of it is linear. And I think both my my accident and this horrific experience, not only that, but just like with anything else in life, it's just it's one thing after another and it doesn't have to be like a horrible things. But it's different hurdles to get over and it's it's the will to continue to heal and continue to fight. I don't want that every day. Like I'm not gonna pretend that I'm this magical. Like you know what, it's a word like Superman. I'm not Superwoman, like I am not. I don't always handle it well, by any means. But you know, with a VIP Act, and just knowing how Alex would want me to live, like all of that is motivation to keep going which you know, I can't heal physically if I am not healed mentally, and vice versa. Yeah, it is. It is a literal, constant thing. Whether it's my back because you know, pain in general, just like really brings you down when it just happens for such a long period of time. So that was kind of where, you know, my next steps happen. That's where my next steps occur. Like where I know I'm happiest and like the whole point finding, finding my wellness like finding the point that I want to go back to go back to the desert and like just face these things. So all that relates to all the physical and mental healing of it all. facing it, experiencing it living it Feeling it? As horrible as it can be? That's, that's the gist of how the physical recovery. Yeah, kind of has been, and will continue to be.
Sydney Williams 47:23
right. Yeah. And I mean, like the I, we were talking last week with Drew Petersen, who is a professional skier and had an accident in 2014. That was kind of the impetus that started his healing journey and, and kind of woke him up to these emotional breaking points in the physical breaking points. And it sounds like if we're taking Drew's conversation and Drew's story and kind of putting that layer onto your story, then you're right there in it. And it's another one of those things where this is a, it's a lifelong process, it's a little bit easier to wrap our heads around healing physical injuries, because we're like, Okay, we've got a broken foot, that takes typically, however many weeks or months to heal, but with the emotional and mental side of things, there's not always something tangible. And that was one of the big takeaways last week from my chat with Drew was like the emotional side of healing. We can't really put a time stamp on it. We can't say, oh, we'll be better and in four weeks. So let's do this. Emily, the Veteran in Parks Act was legislation that Alex was working on, it was then named after him. And for anybody that's curious about that Act itself. We've already posted some links in the promo for the show, we'll post them in the show notes. But what are you looking forward to in 2023, as it pertains to getting back outside and starting to carry some of Alex's legacy before we end our show today?
Emily Henkel 51:45
Well, the pathing of the VIP Act, was I knew that I had a purpose and a reason for living. And I have been and will always be on a constant mission to find it. I survived for a reason and the VIP act is one of those reasons. His office, Raul gras was office down in Tucson, worked absolutely tirelessly to like make this happen. And all within like eight months of his passing, it became a law. Alexander Lofgren Veterans in Parks Act and all it combines all the things that he was incredibly passionate about. And with all the things that I'm passionate about, like helping people helping veterans, that's where we all that's where we connected, that's where we, you know, found similarities in each other. And like, where our relationship grew, like I said earlier, nature and the outdoors built the foundation of our relationship we grew so much. And I saw the just the absolute beauty in his eyes, like through his eyes, being out in these spots, and just the absolute elation that he felt and the solitude that he felt, and I know he struggled all the time with PTSD issues and other issues related to his service in the army. So in 2023, is starting here, I just I want and desperately need this here to be your personal and professional growth. And I feel a deep in my bones that this is going to be unlike any other year that I've experienced. You know, I've lived with my parents since the accident. From was two almost two years now. And you know, it's not all that ideal. Being 30, almost 30, living your life building a life, and then just having it all taken away and go back to square one. But I want to get back out there like I am ready to be on my own, I'm ready to travel. The only thing that I know makes sense for me is just I don't I don't feel like I belong and particularly one place I'm unwilling to just commit to one place and there's so many things that I want to see and it's kind of continuing Alex's legacy and continuing the life that we lived and shared together. I want to continue that. fun fact I bought a van. This is a goal that we had always had. It's in the shop now. Hashtag van life. It is on the shop, but I am going to be mixing it up taking it out and taking my dogs out, reuniting our three dogs that we had together. And just exploring, doing the things that we absolutely love, in his memory in the place that we loved.
Sydney Williams 54:30
Yes, I love this for you. Thank you so much Emily for joining us on this episode of Wellness in the Wilderness. You can follow Emily at EMBHenkel, h e n k e l on Instagram and we'll include other ways to get involved follow up with the Veterans In Parks Act in the show notes. So thank you, Emily for being here today. Next week we'll be chatting with Samuel J. He's a musician, a conservationist and all around good human. We'll be talking about his connection to nature, how he works to protect it, and the music that his conservation work inspires. So, thank you so much for joining us for this week's dose of Wellness in the Wilderness. I hope that today's conversation was a breath of fresh air and I look forward to connecting with everybody again next Tuesday at one o'clock pm on the voice America Epowerment Channel. Until next week, be good to yourself. Take good care of each other dream big, be kind. We'll see you next week.
Announcer 55:25
Thanks for joining us on this week's show. We hope this episode has been a breath of fresh air for you and has inspired you to find your wellness in the wilderness. We will reconnect with nature and you again next week. Since 1984, sell your has existed to support your wildest adventures. Learn about their advanced insect repellents and family of technical Lightweight Water filters at sawyer.com