Sierra hiker lost for 9 days resting after surgery to repair leg

The Sacramento County woman who was missing for nine days in the Sierra Nevada was resting Sunday at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno after surgeons set her broken leg.

Rescuers, meanwhile, offered a few new details of Miyuki Harwood’s rescue as the last of more than 50 searchers returned home Sunday.

Harwood, 62, of Folsom, spent nine days lost in the Sierra National Forest before being rescued Saturday. She was found near a creek, east of Courtright Reservoir.

She was taken by helicopter to Community Regional, where she was in good spirits but exhausted when she arrived, said sheriff’s spokesman Tony Botti.

Harwood and her family asked for privacy Sunday morning, but issued a statement thanking the Fresno County Search and Rescue and its volunteers “for their incredible efforts to find her. She encourages everyone to donate at their website.

“Miyuki would also like to thank all of her friends, and even the people she doesn’t know, for the outpouring of concern and prayers on her behalf.”

Members of the sheriff’s Search and Rescue Team plan to speak with Harwood in a couple of days after she feels better, said Lt. Kathy Curtice.

Curtice said Harwood was conscious and talking when she was found and asked a deputy for warm water because she was cold.

Temperatures dipped during the nine nights that Harwood was missing. “I think they were right around the 40s,” Curtice said.

Harwood was hiking with a group from the Sierra Club when she became separated from them in the area of Horsehead Lake, about 100 miles northeast of Fresno. It reportedly was her first time hiking with the group.

Harwood was reported missing on the evening of Aug. 20 and the next morning rescuers began a 21-mile hike to reach the site where Harwood’s hiking companions were camped, Curtice said.

Harwood, described as a “very knowledgeable, experienced backpacker,” was found about 1 1/2 miles northwest from where she was last seen, Curtice said. “It appears as if she was just trying to work her way back to her campsite.”

A California Highway Patrol flight officer said Saturday that it had taken Harwood about two days to crawl down to the creek where she was found. She was able to drink from the creek with a water filter.

She was found in an area of steep terrain and with trees, Curtice said. Smoke from the Rough fire hindered the search, preventing aircraft from flying and hampering ground searchers, as well, she said.

Harwood had a whistle and was able to blow it to alert rescuers to her location, she said.

Curtice, a longtime member of the sheriff’s Search and Rescue Team, said Harwood’s rescue was “one of the longest periods of time that we had a missing person out there with significant injuries.”

About 100 people participated in the search and rescue effort, Curtice said. At any given time, there were 40 to 70 searchers working to find Harwood, she said. No searcher was injured.

Botti said it is too early to determine the cost of the rescue.

This story was originally published August 30, 2015 at 12:23 PM with the headline "Sierra hiker lost for 9 days resting after surgery to repair leg."