Woman stranded for 3 days gives birth, fights bees, starts forest fire
When Californian woman Amber Pangborn woke up last Wednesday night to find herself in labor, little did she realise how dramatic the next three days of her life were going to be.
For reasons unknown, instead of heading to the hospital, Amber decided to drive to her parents' house by herself through the Plumas County National Forest, taking a back road she had never driven before.
In the middle of the 1,146,000-acre park, she ran out of gas. And there was no phone signal.
"I laid out a sleeping [bag] in the backseat, lied down, gripped the handle above the back window, and gave birth to my daughter," Amber, 35, told local station KCRA.
She named the baby girl, Marissa and the pair hunkered down, with Amber surviving on apples and some bottles of water.
And then the bees came.
Meat bees. For the placenta.
"The meat bees came out and were trying to get the placenta. I was trying to protect [my daughter] from getting stung and I got stung trying," she says.
Understandably desperate, she started a signal fire using a can of hairspray and a lighter. Given the hot weather and the recent drought in the area, the fire quickly spread up the mountain,
"I was looking at Marissa and I told her, 'Honey, I think Mommy just started a forest fire,'" she says.
It worked, however. The US Forest Service came to investigate the fire and the pair were rescued on Saturday.
"I was just crying, and I was just so happy," Pangborn, said. "I thought we were going to die."
Both mother and baby were taken to hospital where they are recovering from their ordeal - and Marissa now has one hell of a birth story.
