Their First Thought After Falling 800 Feet: Panic

Two hikers who were stranded for days after falling down a snowy cliff in California say they had they same thought as they tumbled around 800 feet: "Panic." Veda Lin and Christopher Ng were seriously injured in the fall down Tahquitz Peak in the San Jacinto mountains but it took days to rescue them because of rough weather, the Sacramento Bee reports. In an Instagram post, the Riverside County Sheriff's Office aviation unit said multiple attempts to rescue the pair by helicopter after their fall on Saturday were thwarted by high winds. Lin and Ng were finally hoisted out on Monday morning.

The pair, who were only equipped for a day hike, fell from a ridge line almost 9,000 feet above Idyllwild. "We ended up slipping on the ice up there, just lost our footing and ended up falling down," Lin tells CBS News. They huddled together under a tree, both having been injured in the fall. Around 12 hours later, rescuers arrived on foot with sleeping bags and other sources of warmth. Rescue teams from other counties were called in as rescuers grew "exhausted from working in freezing temperatures and deteriorating weather conditions making a helicopter rescue impossible," officials said. Ng fractured his leg in the fall and developed frostbite in one foot, while Lin's injuries included a fractured sternum and spine.

"Considering how everything went, the fact that we don't have any permanent injuries, and as of now don't need surgery, is really amazing and a miracle in and of itself," Lin tells CBS News. They both praised the "amazing work" of rescue teams. "For me, the search and rescue team when they came in, they actually restored my faith in humanity," Lin says. "I think right now is a difficult time in the world for a lot of people and, you know, those people really gave it their all to save strangers." (More hikers stories.)