Amanda Eller's Bizarre Survival Story

In 2019, Amanda Eller was a 35-year-old physical therapist living in Hawaii with her boyfriend.

Suddenly, her life changed completely after deciding to hike in the Makawao Forest Reserve. Amanda got lost in the thick rainforest jungle and spent more than two weeks surviving in the wilderness with a broken leg.

The rescuers never gave up on finding her, and she finally returned home after 17 days.

Amanda’s Background

Amanda Eller was born in 1983 in Mechanicsville, Maryland, to parents John and Julie Eller. Her father worked at the nearby Naval Air Station Patuxent River.

Amanda graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in kinesiology and then pursued a doctorate in physical therapy. After earning her PhD, Amanda moved to Tampa, Florida, and shared an apartment with a roommate who was interested in yoga.

The two attended several yoga classes together, but Amanda wasn’t ready to explore the practice in depth. During that time, she struggled with staying sober and would often spend her weekends partying.

One chance encounter when she was 29 years old inspired Amanda to completely change her life and move to Maui, the second-largest island of Hawaii.

She quickly found work as a physical therapist, but staying sober was still a challenge for her. Six months after relocating to Maui, Amanda moved to a farm in Haiku, where she began practicing yoga daily.

Soon after, she signed up for yoga teacher training and completed the mandatory 200 hours of practice. One thing led to another, and Amanda began exploring meditation.

She stopped drinking and would do yoga and swim in the ocean instead. Around this time, Amanda met a young man named Benjamin Konkol, and the two soon became a couple.

The Disappearance

On the morning of May 8th, 2019, Amanda planned to grab breakfast before meeting her friend. The two wanted to catch up and maybe go hiking together. However, Amanda’s friend couldn’t make it.

Determined to go out and explore nature, Amanda decided to visit the Makawao Forest Reserve on her own. She hopped into her Toyota RAV4 and stopped by the post office to send a Mother’s Day package to her mom back in Maryland.

Amanda arrived at the Makawao Forest Reserve intending to go trail running.

Since she didn’t want to carry anything in her hands, Amanda left her phone, wallet, and water bottle inside the car. She hid the car keys behind the back tire and found a nearby trail.

Amanda quickly got tired, so she slowed her pace and started walking through dense foliage, following the widest trail.

After an hour and a half, she sat on a downed tree and meditated for 20 minutes. But when it was time to return to her car, Amanda couldn’t figure out the right path to safety.

The Search

Amanda’s boyfriend Benjamin returned home late from work on May 8th, 2019, and wasn’t surprised to find the house empty.

Thinking Amanda was still out with friends, he waited for her to show up. After a while, Benjamin got ready for bed and sent Amanda a text message.

Since she didn’t reply by the morning, Benjamin contacted the authorities and reported his girlfriend missing on May 9th.

Law enforcement quickly located Amanda’s vehicle near the Makawao Forest Reserve and discovered all her personal belongings inside, including the flip-flops.

After inspecting the car, Benjamin said Amanda’s running shoes were missing, which confirmed his theory she went hiking and got injured.

Soon, Maui Search and Rescue, as well as the Maui County Department of Fire and Public Safety, were on the scene, organizing the search of the forest.

Locals who had heard that a hiker was missing began arriving to help out. Teams of volunteers covered the trails while Search and Rescue searched the area by air.

Meanwhile, Amanda’s friends tried to contact her parents to let them know what was happening. John and Julie Eller finally responded on the third day of the search.

They were on a trip off the coast of Venezuela and quickly boarded the first flight to Maui.

By then, the media began reporting on Amanda’s disappearance, and posters featuring her photo were put up all around the island.

The police pieced together the timeline of Amanda’s movements on May 8th through surveillance camera footage and confirmed she was last seen at 10:19 am at the store across the street from the post office.

She headed in the direction of Makawao Forest Reserve alone.

The surveillance videos also revealed Amanda was wearing a sleeveless tank top and cropped yoga pants. She wasn’t equipped for colder temperatures, which is common for the forest reserve at night.

On May 11th, three days after Amanda’s disappearance was reported to the authorities, Maui Search & Rescue had to pull out. That meant the volunteers were on their own.

A GoFundMe page was created, and people around the world donated $70,000, hoping the money would be useful in finding the lost hiker.

Since there was no sign of Amanda for five days, the public turned their attention to her boyfriend Benjamin, suspecting he had something to do with the disappearance. After all, he waited one day to report her missing.

The community didn’t know that the police had already investigated Benjamin and confirmed he was working on a construction site in Kihei at the time of Amanda’s disappearance. Furthermore, Benjamin agreed to take a lie detector test and passed.

While authorities stopped actively searching for Amanda in the forest, they didn’t abandon the case. After ruling Benjamin out, they focused on several other theories, such as the possibility that Amanda was taken against her will.

But Amanda’s friends and family, as well as hundreds of volunteers from the community, continued to comb the dense forest, believing she was still in there somewhere.

The money raised through the GoFundMe page was used to rent a helicopter, and they slowly expanded the area of search.

Seventeen days after Amanda was last seen in the post office, Chris Berquist, an arborist who knew the area well, gathered a team to find a place to land the helicopter the next day.

The plan was to transport the volunteers over a dangerous part of the forest that wasn’t accessible by foot so they could continue to look for Amanda.

As they were returning to the base, Pete Vorhes, who was flying the helicopter, decided to go along the creek. Suddenly, the crew saw a person waving their hands. It was Amanda.

The helicopter was unable to land anywhere near her because the area was inaccessible. The pilot found a hill close to her location, and Chris Berquist, Javier Cantellops, and Troy Helmer found their way into the canyon to get to Amanda.

When the group reached her, Amanda was sitting by the creek, and she was clearly injured. She had scratches on her skin, a fractured leg, and a torn meniscus.

Furthermore, her skin was sunburnt, and Amanda was visibly thinner. Shockingly, she was in good spirits despite her condition. The rescuers put her into the helicopter, and she was transported to the nearest hospital.

Amanda needed to physically heal, but she was eager to tell her family and people who searched for her in the forest about her survival.

Amanda’s story

After realizing she was unable to find the right path out of the forest, Amanda continued searching for more trails that could lead her to her car.

She was well aware that spending the night in the forest was dangerous because of the wild animals and low temperatures at night.

After the sunset, Amanda continued walking until 1:00 am, but she was tired, hungry, and thirsty.

She lay down in the mud, hoping she would go to sleep. However, it was nearly impossible because her mind was racing. As soon as the first rays of sunshine appeared, Amanda got up and searched for water.

Even though she soon found a creek, Amanda was careful not to drink too much because she wasn’t sure if the water was safe.

Believing she would have more luck on the second day, she continued to walk despite feeling weak and disoriented. Amanda climbed several hills, but she wasn’t any closer to the exiting the forest.

By then, she had begun to hallucinate from exhaustion. As the darkness drew closer, Amanda decided to sleep in the ferns.

On the morning of the third day in the forest, Amanda heard helicopters flying above her. Knowing they were searching for her, she found a clearing and waited.

Unfortunately, the helicopters didn’t fly over that area throughout the day, but she decided not to go further and wait for help.

By the fourth day, Amanda realized the scratches on her ankles were inflamed and painful. She stayed close to the clearing while searching for strawberry guavas she could eat.

Just before sunset, a helicopter flew over her, but the rescuers didn’t see her waving. By then, she was extremely thirsty. While looking for water, she slipped down a ravine and fell 20 feet into a small canyon.

The fall resulted in a broken leg, and Amanda struggled to pull herself out of the water. It was clear that climbing out would be difficult, but she was hopeful. While sitting by the creek, Amanda tried to relieve the pain by doing physical therapy exercises.

A heavy rain started on the fifth day, and the water levels suddenly rose in the canyon. A flash flood washed away Amanda’s shoes, and she almost drowned.

For the next ten days, she stayed in the same area, crawling on her hands and knees to find strawberry guavas in the nearby bushes.

Sixteen days after she was last seen in the town, Amanda made it downstream to the top of the waterfall. She carefully swam there since walking was impossible due to her injuries.

On day seventeen, she was trying to stay warm on the hot rocks and searching for food when she heard a helicopter above her. Amanda waved her hands frantically, hoping the pilot would see her this time, and he did.

The Aftermath

Following the rescue, the media, who covered Amanda’s disappearance from the beginning, wanted an interview with her.

However, she was in no shape to appear in front of the cameras right away. Several days later, Amanda decided to hold a press conference while on painkillers, and it backfired.

While speaking to the press, she stated that the days spent in the forest were a spiritual journey and that description didn’t sit well with everyone.

Her poor choice of words led some people to speculate she had taken substances and intentionally got lost.

Amanda took to Facebook to write a lengthy apology regarding the press conference, stating she shouldn’t have left her phone in the car.

If she had it with her on the day she entered the forest, she could’ve called for help. Amanda apologized to the rescuers and volunteers who risked their lives to find her.

After her release from the hospital, Amanda stayed in Maui for some time, but it was clear to her she was suffering from PTSD.

She returned to Maryland and spent two months with her family before moving to Oregon. Even though her time in the Pacific Northwest was memorable, Amanda moved back to Maui.

She did her best to deal with the trauma and made sure to frequently visit the Makawao Forest Reserve.

However, Amanda finally decided to move to Minneapolis in 2024 to be with her long-distance boyfriend. She is currently working as a holistic physical therapist.