Injured hiker makes YouTube video while waiting for rescue

21-year-old Lexi De Forest was hiking in Vedauwoo, Wyoming with a friend when she went to jump over a trench. Instead, she slipped and fell, injuring her ankle. Her friend went to get help, but in the meantime De Forest kept herself busy by making a video to distract from the pain.
"So this is me. I just broke my ankle. The second time now. Come on Lexi, you would think you'd be better at this by now, this walking thing," De Forest says in the video.

It had over 21,000 views as of Friday afternoon, and has been posted to popular link aggregator Reddit.

De Forest told CBC News that she had to wait about an hour and half to be rescued so she made the video while waiting.

"The reason I made it was just to be able to show something for the time I was on the mountain alone and have evidence of how calm I was able to be and just to distract myself as well," she said.

"My own voice was almost comforting," De Forest added.

The video starts with a shot of De Forest's injured ankle bent at a horrific angle. She goes on to talk about her friends and family, and tells her brother how excited she is for him to start college. Still, she's clearly frightened.

"I am really scared. But in the calmest, coolest sense," De Forest says in the video.

Help did arrive, but it took a search and rescue team over an hour to reach De Forest. She was then rappelled down the mountain (a process she says took five hours,) loaded into an ambulance, and then transferred onto a helicopter which took her to hospital.

 De Forest said she needed two surgeries after the accident and now has pieces of metal, called external fixators, holding her ankle in place.

'The doctors didn't really tell me a lot, just 'We're going into surgery,'' said De Forest of her hospital stay, noting that that the ligaments and tendons are expected to heal on their own.

She was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday but says she still has a long road ahead of her to recovery, a process that will include rehab and crutches and could take up to a year.

De Forest also mentioned her parents in the clip, saying, "Shout out to my fam. I'll probably show you this so...I love you guys."

So what does her family they think of the video?

 "They thought it was hilarious, because by that time, we had already gotten over the whole emotional aspect of it," said De Forest, noting they waited several days after her injury to watch it.

The Colorado State University student has already been contacted by Fox News and Good Morning America and is enjoying the buzz she's getting online.

"I think it's pretty cool. I feel like the most popular girl at the prom," she told CBC News.

Have you ever been lost or injured in the wilderness? What do you think of De Forest's technique of keep herself calm? What would you do if you were in a similar situation?