Injured hiker lay 2 days on her own in pain, reflection

It was on the second day of lying badly injured on a remote beach that stark reality dawned on Dana Crane.

The 19-year-old had gone hiking on the beach by herself in Olympic National Park without telling anyone her plans. Now, she was without food or drinking water and in so much pain she could crawl only a few feet.

Later, she would learn that her spine was broken in three places, there was a compound fracture in her lower right leg, both feet had broken bones, and her left thumb was broken.

The previous day, on May 13, she had decided to jog on a trail by the Pacific Ocean, just south of La Push, Clallam County. She didn't carry her heavy backpack (which had provisions), figuring she'd return shortly to pick it up.

She fell 25 feet from crumbling rocks — typical of rocks along the coast — and was knocked unconscious.

When she came to, she said, and stopped trying to move, lucidity set in.

"I thought over all the mistakes I had made to get to that point. I had a big wave of disappointment," said Crane.

Barb Maynes, spokeswoman for Olympic National Park, said, "She was extremely lucky to have been found, and extremely fortunate not to have received even more serious injuries."

The accident took place on a Saturday afternoon. Crane was found by hikers the following Monday, May 15, and taken by helicopter to a Port Angeles hospital, and later to Harborview Medical Center.

Friday, Crane was talking about her ordeal in her hospital room, moving little because of the cast on her right leg, a neck brace and a back brace. Doctors had fused two of her vertebrae and held them together with two 5-inch-long metal rods.

Within a few days, she expects to return home to Brunswick, Maine, and spend the summer recovering. She just finished her sophomore year at Lewis & Clark College in Portland.

Crane doesn't have a car, and to get to the coast, she had taken buses and gotten rides.

She spent three nights along the Hoh River, and, said Maynes, had filed a wilderness permit for that area of the park. But she also decided to go to the beach, which she had not noted when filling out her permit, said Maynes. The park is more than 922,000 acres in size.

"Had she been reported missing, we would have looked in a completely different area," said Maynes.

A Montana couple was the first to find the severely dehydrated Crane, who was waving and blowing a whistle she had with her. They gave her water and frantically went to look for help.

They ran into David Skinner, who works for Olympic National Park repairing trails.

Friday, Crane said she plans to go hiking alone again, although she'll take more precautions.

"I like being outside in the wilderness," she said.

"It's like this freedom thing."

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com