Runner, lost in forest, drinks own breast milk to survive

Susan O’Brien got lost Sunday morning running and says she drank her own breast milk, dug a hole and covered herself in dirt to survive the night, which saw temperatures hover around 14 C.

The New Zealand runner was rescued Monday morning after getting lost in the Rimutaka Forest Park near Wellington, New Zealand, during the Xterra Wellington Trail Run Series.

The 29-year-old is the mother to an eight-month-old daughter and a two-year-old son.

“Nothing else mattered but my family. I felt God with me the whole time,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald. “I wanted to get to my family as soon as possible.”

“I definitely thought I was going to die.”

The race director says about 423 runners started the race and were expected to finish by 11:30 a.m. A search team was put together to find O’Brien when it was realized Sunday afternoon that she was missing and was not at her home. After the search team Sunday was unable to find her, a helicopter with heat-detection was added to the search team, though she had already made her way out of the forest on Monday morning. The helicopter airlifted to her family, where her top priority was to feed her daughter.

The race director says their search procedures, which included lighting smoke beacons, kicked in immediately when it was realized O’Brien was missing