Ten years later, woman relives being rescued after 5 days pinned in truck

LENOIR, N.C. — It was called a miracle.

Ten years ago this week, a young mother on her way home from work disappeared north of Lenoir.

Rescuers found her five days later still pinned inside her pickup truck where she had crashed into a deep ravine.

Amber Wagoner still lives and works in the Buffalo Cove community where she grew up in a rural part of Caldwell County.

She gained national attention when she vanished 10 years ago, leading to dozens of searches along the 20-mile stretch of roads between Lenoir and her home.

"I don't remember anything but waking up and looking around, me in a hole somewhere,” Wagoner told Channel 9. “I don't remember how it happened."

Wagoner said she ended up crashing down a 50-foot kudzu-covered ravine.

She had left work in Lenoir and stopped at Walmart to pick up dog food, water and birthday invitations for her daughter.

Because she had placed the water and dog food in the back of the truck and she was pinned in, she couldn't reach it.

"For five days you didn't eat anything?” Channel 9 reporter Dave Faherty asked.

“No. The only thing I remember doing is it rained one night and so I remember reaching out and there were leaves and I sucked the water off it because my mouth was so dry,” Wagoner said.

The accident caused 14 broken bones.

Wagoner also had a lacerated kidney and liver.

For the five days, firefighters, volunteers and others searched for her along the winding mountain roads leading to her home, but couldn't find her or the pickup truck.

By then, Wagoner was losing hope and used an eyeliner pencil to scribble a last note to her two children.

"I was sorry that I fought as long as I could and did as much as I could, but that I loved them and to always do well,” Wagoner said.

Tommy Courtner, the emergency medical services director who oversaw the search effort, said he still has the ropes he used.

Like many, he was ready to call off the search on the fourth day.

But that night, he saw surveillance video from Walmart clearly showing Wagoner leaving the store.

On the fifth day, Courtner decided to go out on one last search attempt.

He searched along a stretch of Highway 321 a few miles from the Walmart.

Although it had already been searched, Courtner somehow spotted the taillights of Wagoner’s truck covered in kudzu deep in the ravine.

Inside, the 21-year-old was barely alive.

"She was actually holding her head out the window and mumbling something,” Courtner said. “I couldn't understand her. It's a point in your life where you realize you shouldn't give up on anybody or anything."

Channel 9 was there as rescuers carefully pulled her broken body up the steep hillside.

Wagoner, whose last name at the time was Pennell, credits her first husband for keeping the search efforts going, but said it was her children who kept her alive for those five days.

Each year, Wagoner returns to the ravine with her family to give thanks she was able to watch them grow up.

This year will be no different.

"God's grace is the only explanation I have,” Wagoner said. “There's no other explanation for it. There's no medical explanation for why I'm alive, so just God's grace. He wanted me to come home to my two babies."

Wagoner thanks the hundreds of people who joined in the search efforts.

After being rescued, it took her nearly six months to learn to walk again.

Cox Media Group