By Michael Tsai / Honolulu Star-Advertiser
More than two weeks after she disappeared while hiking, Haiku resident Amanda Eller was found alive Friday afternoon within the Makawao Forest Reserve.
“We did it, man! We found her,” said Javier Cantellops, one of a core group of friends and family who spent the last 16 days combing the area for the missing woman.
Cantellops, a former Special Operations Airborne Ranger with the 3rd Ranger Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment, according to his business website, said he and fellow searchers Chris Berquist and Troy Helmers were aboard a helicopter searching an area far east of earlier search efforts when they spotted Eller in a creek bed between two waterfalls.
Cantellops said the area was “way east” of the Bamboo Forest and the Commando Trail.
Eller, who went missing May 8, was in good condition and high spirits when she was airlifted to a designated landing zone to be reunited with her family. Her father, John, said she suffered abrasions and sun exposure but was otherwise “very awake, very aware — mentally 100%.”
John Eller said he remained confident his daughter could survive being stranded in the wilderness, a stance Eller’s reappearance Friday seemed to vindicate.
“There’s no reason she shouldn’t have been able to survive that for that period of time, as rough as it is,” he said in a statement to media. “She’s in a little bit of rough shape there but she did it. She figured it out. She was strong. She was prepared for this. We said that at the beginning and it was absolutely true.”
The good news broke around 4:30 p.m. on a Facebook page devoted to the search with a post that read, “Urgent update! Amanda has been found. She was injured in the forest. She is being air evacuated now. She just talked to her father on the phone. Amanda Eller is alive !!!!”
The post drew immediate response from thousands of people — from Hawaii to Eller’s hometown of Mechanicsville, Md., to points abroad — who have been tracking the story. Within the first hour the post drew more than 7,000 reactions, 2,000 comments and 3,000 shares.
Earlier Friday, The Family & Friends of Amanda Eller increased the reward on the Facebook page to $50,000 from $10,000 for definitive information regarding her disappearance and possible abduction.
Eller, 35, a physical therapist and yoga instructor, had not been seen since the morning of May 8, when she was captured on surveillance video shopping at Haiku Market and mailing a Mother’s Day gift at the Haiku Post Office.
Her white Toyota Rav4 was spotted shortly after noon by an off-duty firefighter in the parking lot of the Makawao Forest Reserve, where she was known to hike. It was still there at 7 p.m. when staffers closed the gates to the park. She was reported missing the following morning by her boyfriend.
Fire rescue crews and more than 100 volunteers mounted an intensive land and air search of the area. The effort expanded to high-tech GPS mapping and the dispatch of a team of hiking dogs as the days stretched to weeks. John Eller said search and rescue consultants assessed the case and advised the search party to look in low-lying areas that would increase chances of survival, leading to her eventual discovery.
“This was a volunteer effort,” said volunteer search coordinator Sarah Hayne. “We found her because of the Maui community and the people who took off work to look for her.”
Hayne noted that Berquist lost his job because he refused to return while the search was ongoing.
This story originally appeared in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, a sibling paper to the Herald.
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