US woman sucks water from hair to stay alive

An American woman sucked rainwater from her hair for five days to keep herself alive after crashing her car in the Rocky Mountains.

In a story that has made headlines around the world, Cynthia Blair-Hoover was knocked out after she swerved to avoid a deer, leaving a road in Colorado and rolling 120m down a cliff.

When she woke, her car was on its roof.

She was virtually immobile, wearing just a pair of shorts and a blouse and facing rain, snow and wild animals. She had broken 11 ribs, several vertebrae and suffered a punctured lung.

Just 400m away was the opening to an old gold mine in the side of a hill. It took her five days to crawl to it and cry for help, armed with a golf club to deal with the threat of mountain lions and bears.

Tourists at the mine said they found Ms Blair-Hoover with her "mouth full of dirt".

She told them she had stayed alive by sucking water from her own hair.

"She had a heck of a will to live," local fire chief Gary Allen told SkyNews.

"She used up three or four miracles.

"We have mountain lions, bears and other critters up here. It is a miracle she wasn't mauled to death."

Ms Blair-Hoover is in a hospital in Colorado.

She said she kept herself alive by thinking about her children and grandchildren.

Her sister Rhonda Adams told the Denver Post: "She was scared that something was going to get her. Can you imagine being alone for five days, talking to yourself?"

- Agencies