And I Alone Survived

by Lauren Elder

Book Overview

An account of the author's ordeal and endurance as the only survivor of a small-plane crash in the High Sierra and of her descent to safety This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0449238644
• ISBN13: 9780449238646
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: Fawcett Books
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Inspriational

I recently picked this book up at the Salvation for a buck. I usually grab anything that is true-to-life, preferring to hear about real people rather than fictional characters. I wasn't holding my breath as I prepared to read this, as I've read other survival stories that are by all means justifiable, but not necessarily breathtaking. This book was that and more. It is a concise narrative about a women whose will to survive motivated her to do what she had to do - stay alive. She didn't sit around and wait to be rescued from her challenged state of being. She took her fate into her own hands at all costs and kept a positive attitude along the way. This person showed how determination can pay off. This life story, which happened many years ago, has inspired me to take action in my own life. If you feel the need to read a self-help book with answers into the meaning of life and what its all about, pick up a copy of this book. It's an easy read. I read it in less than 24 hours and was reluctant to put it down to get about my daily business. It's that good. We are so often bombarded with stories of tragedy involving tens, hundreds, thousands of souls, so the story of one person's survival many years ago might seem a bit ho-hum. But this is truly moving and if you are able to empathize at all, this book will move you to tears.

Kearsarge Pass...

I read "And I Alone Survived" in the 70's, loved it (although I felt I lived every agonizing moment and walked every inch with Ms. Elder, so gripping was the story) and was reading something just tonight that had the word "Kearsarge" in it. So, one thought leading to another, I remembered that was the name of the pass the pilot was trying to crest on his way to Furnace Creek from Oakland...and I just got curious to see if the book was still in print. I must take exception with a couple points in reviews here...one, I don't believe that "the pilot having had just 300 hours of flight time and therefore wasn't experienced enough to make this flight" was really the issue. He was just plain reckless...he not only didn't follow common sense (one NEVER should venture out when there are high wind warnings, which there were, let alone around the Sierras of all places which magnifies everything and tosses a plane not powerful enough to handle it around like a leaf...that was just stupid, and he broke a cardinal rule by cavalierly not filing a flight plan. This is unforgivable!) And I also recall, not that he necessarily emotionally lost the will to live...but that he had such severe internal injuries that he had a lot of internal bleeding which, when mixed with the trauma and the lack of oxygen at 13,000 feet...hardly anyone could have survived. There was a particularly dramatic passage where Lauren describes his dying in her arms. I too am very familiar with, and very much love, the Sierras. And when I drive past Indepedence even to this day and look up to see what I think might be Kearsarge Pass...I still can't believe that this woman made it out ALONE, from way up there...to way down to the Owens Valley. With a broken arm, yet! And I too wonder where she is today and what she is doing. Bravo to you, Ms. Elder...you were truly amazing in your will to survive.

If You Love and/or Hike The High Sierra, Read This Book!

I re-read this book just last year, the first time being when it first came out in the 70's. I didn't know a whole lot about the High Sierra mountain range when the book came out, but I was just starting to hike in the Mt. Whitney area and I hadn't been up to any of the summits in the range.Now decades later and having summitted Mt. Whitney and other of the many 14,000 foot peaks there, I have a real appreciation and awe for Ms. Elder somehow getting herself down in the area of that monster mountain, Mt. Williamson. Having gotten lost a few times in the Sierra, let me tell you, just going down a cliff is easier said than done. The cliffs up there can be over a 1,000 feet high, straight down and slick. Ms. Elder got down in torn street shoes and that's a miracle in itself. I have also been in a High Sierra storm at only 9,000 feet and it was beyond any cold you could imagine. That she survived the sub-freezing temperatures at around 13,000 feet in only a torn summer dress is another miracle.To drive to So. Calif. I pass through the town of Independence and the motel, Ray's Den,where she was mistakenly turned away because this was just after the Manson arrests and they thought she was a drug-addled hippy! I see how far away the mountain is from the town and it just blows me away that she survived. I think of her journey every time I pass through. If you are a mountain buff and/or a hiker, buy this book. You won't be able to put it down!

And I Alone Survived

I, like another reviewer, had read this book when it first came out. I had bought the paperback sometime in the 70's and like the other reviewer read it from cover to cover in one sitting. Lauren's experience surviving the incredible hardships of the plane crash, dealing with her planemates fates and then her incredible journey down the mountain made me realize how strong-willed we humans can be when it comes down to the challenges she faced climbing down that sheer mountain with her injuries, hallucinations and no underpants! Since I lost the original paperback I owned,I ordered the book again last week (Nov. 2002); it arrived in the mail last night and once again riveted by Lauren's incredible experience read it through in one sitting! I only have two questions now..Now that Lauren is in her 50's like me, whatever happened to her? did she end up with her boyfriend Jim? Did she ever have any long-term problems with the crash? And alright, three questions, why hasn't anyone made a motion picture out of this incredible story?!!!

A Vivid Lesson in Survival

Lauren Elder, with the help of ghost writer Shirley Strashinsky, tells the story of a light plane crash in the Sierra Mountains in California.Lauren is a likeable young woman, something of a Bohemian artist-type, who on a whim takes up an offer to be the third passenger on a little Cessna, making the trip from San Francisco to Death Valley. The pilot is confident and competent but has only some 300 flying hours -- he mistakes the pass through the Sierras and Lauren, sitting in the back seat and enjoying the view of mountains all round, turns forward to see a wall of granite moving towards them! When she wakes up, she finds they've crashed: the crumpled plane is lying on a precarious slope a few FEET away from the crest of the Sierras.(The geography here is part of the drama because Mount Whitney, just a few miles from them, is the tallest mountain in the continental U.S., and the Owens Valley below, in turn, is a close and comparable neighbor to the lowest point, Death Valley. Lauren can see the Owens Valley from the crash site.)One of her fellow passengers is severely injured; the pilot less severely so but seems nonetheless unwilling or unable to help. Lauren and he survive the severe cold that night by collecting gasoline from the leaking plane and pouring it in a thin steady stream onto a fire they're started with the plane's cigarette lighter.She tells in first-person, frank and meticulous detail the events of that night, and of the next morning when she decides to hike/climb down from the mountain to the valley below, at one point having to lower herself down a dry waterfall, and having many visual hallucinations on the way because of lack of sleep and shock; and, finally, how she has trouble finding help when she walks late that night into the town of Independence! People see her disheveled appearance and are afraid -- this is the county seat where Charles Manson was put to trial, and where his female followers spent a lot of time hanging around the courthouse.This may not be the most amazing story of survival extant -- I guess that's why the book is out of print -- but I couldn't put it down. I liked Lauren, and Shirley Strashinsky is a really excellent ghost writer: you feel that this is happening to you, and this makes the lessons in survival most memorable. I found myself saying, as Lauren does in many places, "We should have had a first aid kit -- I should have worn better shoes," etc. And thanking God that she had just happened to take, for instance, a good, warm cap that covered her ears.Ironically, Lauren's father is an ex-Navy test pilot working for Northrop Aviation. Northrop sends one of their planes to search for her, piloted by a buddy of the father's who has logged more than a hundred times the hours that Lauren's friend had. Point made regarding light planes: don't travel very far in them unless the pilot has racked up thousands of miles.