Following up on this thread, I contacted Patty to see how she was doing, and to maybe find out more about her experience. She gave me the ok to write about her situation.

She still has no memory of her hike beyond Lone Pine Lake, but from her camera, it showed she hiked and took pictures all the way up to Trail Camp, at 12,000' elevation.

The unusual thing is that she slept low, at Lone Pine campground, elev. 5900', got up in the morning, and did not think to get her food for a day hike out of the bear box. It is sure odd, because she had been hiking for five days before with a Sierra Club group up to 11,000 and 12,000'. Two years before, she even hiked the Inca Trail (13,600') in Peru with no trouble.

Patty wrote:
Quote:
I suppose the lesson I learned is not to hike by myself because I was not aware of any of these symptoms. If I had someone with me hopefully they would have recognized the symptoms and would have sent me back down. And I suppose being acclimated for a few days before your hike doesn't mean you wont get high altitude sickness or HACE or HAPE.

I never had anything like this happen before and I have been at high elevation before at 14000-15000 feet.
I suppose this was a wake call for me because the doctors said that I almost died, because of electrolyte imbalance and respiratory arrest.


Her picture at Trail Camp was taken at 12:05, but she had the seizure there around 4 PM. Helicopter took her out at 1830.

So I am wondering what she did for those 4 hours, wandering around, unaware of her condition. Luckily she wandered into the right people at Trail Camp when she had the seizure. As she writes, "I wish I knew who the doctors were that were camping at trail camp and found me. They are the ones that saved my life."

Incidentally, her helicopter evacuation cost was paid by her insurance: $1700 to Lone Pine, then $18000 to Reno.

Patty has not been able to return to her full-time job as a flight attendant, since she is taking seizure medicine. But she is also a nurse and is able to do that.