Claire NelsonA New Zealand woman underwent surgery yesterday after her ordeal in Joshua Tree National Park. Claire Nelson, 35, who was trapped in the sun for three days with a shattered pelvis, had surgery to piece her broken bones back together. Nelson has been in Desert Regional Hospital in Palm Springs since a rescue helicopter crew found her Friday badly injured in Joshua Tree National Park near Lost Palms Oasis/Mastodon Peak, frantically signaling for help Friday afternoon. She had been out hiking when she fell off a boulder and broke her pelvis Tuesday afternoon, May 22. Nelson shared her ordeal on social media, telling how she was unable to sit up or even move at all to escape the punishing desert sun. “I just lay there, using a stick to help cover me for the long hot parts of the day when the sun was burning, and at night tried to keep warm and not get panicked about rattlesnakes,” she said. “My water ran out Wednesday night and I survived by drinking my own urine.” Nelson had been house-sitting for friends in Joshua Tree while they visited Morocco, but the friends became worried when they couldn’t get in touch with her and couldn’t see her posting on social media. They contacted Park rangers Friday morning, May 25, and six hours later Nelson was on her way to hospital. She said she heard the rescue chopper fly overhead several times with someone on a megaphone calling her name and was finally able to signal to them using a stick with her T-shirt and hat tied to it. “The guys on the chopper said they never would have found me if I hadn’t made a flag to wave. Nobody could hear me scream. I would have died by the weekend. I cannot believe I am alive”, she said. Claire Nelson is a freelance writer who grew up between Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand. She had been travelling through Canada when she took a break to housesit for her friends at their home in Joshua Tree.
