Lexi De Forest sat, alone, on top of a mountain in Wyoming one recent Saturday.
A small pool of blood collected under her right foot, which was barely attached to the rest of her leg. Propped upside down on her left leg, it was nearly ripped off.
In just days, the 21-year-old Manhattan Beach native and Mira Costa High School graduate would become an Internet star, booking gigs on Good Morning America and other news stations, and hundreds of thousands of people would hear her story of bravery and courage.
That Saturday evening, De Forest was climbing down the rock formations of Vedauwoo, Wyoming, located about an hour and a half from her school, Colorado State University.
She’d just watched the sunset with her boyfriend, Erik Henry, and the two were making their way back to the campsite, where they’d planned to spend the night.
De Forest came across a trench that Henry had jumped across on their way up. “I wanted to see if I could do it,” she recalled.
The avid hiker scoped out places from which to jump, and finally found a spot. “I got close to the edge to see if I could to it. In the process I lost my balance and slipped off the rock into the eight-foot trench that had boulders on the bottom,” she said.
“I landed on one rock and fell to the right, that’s how my ankle broke the way it did, it kind of ripped off,” she added, with a laugh.
Her first instinct was to climb out of the trench, and crawl down the entire mountain. “It was just me needing to find some way to safety at the moment,” she recalled.
Henry carried her to an area shielded from the wind and went to seek help. It was shortly after 8 p.m.
In the meantime, De Forest kept herself busy. She burst out singing Disney and Fall Out Boy songs. “I was singing them as loud as I possibly could,” she said. “Anything to keep my mind off my injury.”
After that got boring, she talked to her self for a while – “just to have something to hear and listen to” – and then rummaged through her camping bag.
She stumbled upon her camera, and decided to record a video.
The nearly seven-minute video opens with a shot of her mangled foot. “So this is me, um, I just broke my ankle. Eww, second time now. Like, come on, Lexi. You’d think you’d be better at this by now, this walking thing,” she starts.
“The bone isn’t really attached, it’s truly something,” she continues. “I am really scared. But in, like, the calmest, coolest sense.”
She gives shout outs to her friends and family, notes that the hike featured “one of the coolest views I’ve ever seen,” laments that she’s probably going to have to cancel her study abroad trip to Prague (she was scheduled to leave the following week), and comments on her fear of bears.
After she posted the video on YouTube on August 15, it went viral. It now boasts more than 250,000 views and hundreds of supportive comments. She’s since booked gigs on Good Morning America, and been featured on Fox News, ABC and CBS.
“I wanted to have something to show for the time I was up there,” De Forest said on Monday. “It was kind of coping mechanism to relieve the anxiety that was forming. And in doing so, it calmed me. I was able to be level headed about how scared I was.”
When search and rescue arrived, it took more than five hours to transport De Forest down the mountain, into a helicopter and into the hospital. She endured two surgeries – metal rods are currently keeping her foot attached to her leg.
De Forest will be on crutches for six weeks, after which she’ll get a walking boot. “I didn’t break any bones, just tore ligaments and tendons and muscles. It’s amazing,” she said.
Even more amazing, De Forest has charmed fans across the nation – online commenters continue to commend her bravery and calmness.
“I’d be screaming at the top of my lungs, a very high pitched scream, and I’m a grown man. What a brave chick,” one commenter wrote.
“People from all over the country are telling me they saw me on this website and that website,” De Forest said. “It’s kind of amazing.”
