One afternoon last March, the 22-year-old was hiking a trail in Santa Barbara, California, with her friend Brenden Vega, also 22. Their inexperience showed: The terrain was more treacherous than they had planned for, and as it began to grow dark, they struggled to find a way back to their car. Then, Guilliams landed badly when jumping off a rock, fracturing her left leg.

Things only got worse from there. Their cell phones were dead, and they hadn’t brought flashlights. When Vega tried to carry Guilliams, he fell, shattering his glasses, breaking his elbow and breaking her ankle. In a matter of minutes, the couple’s pleasant day outdoors had become a nightmare. Unable to walk, Guilliams stayed put while Vega went to get help. That was the last time she saw him.

“I was yelling for help all night and the rest of the next day, even though I was losing consciousness,” Guilliams told The Huffington Post. “At some point I didn’t think anyone would find me. No one would save me and I would end up dead.”

By the next afternoon, her lungs had given out and she had stopped screaming. Guilliams lay face down in mud and leaves, delirious, surrounded by buzzing flies.

Around this time, three hikers approached the area. One of them, Nicole Gergen, saw “a flame of red hair” out of the corner of her eye. “Then I saw it move.”

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