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Fortunate find
Prayers, rescuers' hard work cited in discovery of missing woman
Keith Davenport, with Caldwell County EMS, points to the area where Amber Clark Pennell was found down a 70-foot kudzu-covered embankment and rescued Monday after she went missing for five days.
Robert C. Reed
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Published: August 27, 2008
LENOIR - The kudzu patch next to Woodbury Lumber on Valway Road shows few signs it was plowed through by an out-of-control pickup truck.
No gouges were visible in the median Tuesday to indicate a truck careened over the curb and down an embankment into a healthy patch of kudzu, either.
The busy four-lane highway that passes next to the kudzu patch is flat and straight and it was virtually impossible for the layman to see the trail where the truck left the road. Even from the picnic table on Woodbury Lumber's front porch - just 15 yards from the edge of the ravine - it was impossible to know what lay at the bottom.
It took the expert eye of Caldwell County Emergency Medical Services Director Tommy Courtner to spot a line of slightly tamped-down kudzu that led to the bottom of a 70-foot ravine where Amber Pennell, 21, of Lenoir, lay alive and trapped in her crushed pickup truck five days after her husband Mitchell Pennell, 24, reported her missing.
Emergency extraction teams equipped with electric saws and hydraulic extraction devices arrived and rappelled into the ravine at 7:45 p.m. By 8:30 p.m., they had freed Pennell from the wreckage, gotten her out of the ravine and into an ambulance headed to Carolinas Medical Center, said Keith Davenport, Caldwell County Emergency Medical Services assistant director.
Davenport talked Tuesday about Courtner finding Pennell suffering from broken legs, dehydration and fear she would not be found.
According to a hospital spokesman, Pennell is in stable condition. Calls to her husband were not immediately returned.
"The first thing she asked Mitchell was, 'How are my babies?'" said Amber Pennell's mother-in-law Cheryl Walker, 51. She added Pennell's two children, Gracelyn, 2, and Cameron, 1, are doing well.
Davenport said Pennell's devotion to her children was what gave her the will and strength to survive her ordeal. Proof of that devotion was caught on the security footage shot at Wal-Mart, minutes before her crash. It shows Pennell buying party supplies for her daughter's birthday party. She'll turn 3 on Friday.
The Caldwell County Sheriff's Office worked diligently to learn where Pennell went after getting off work at Hannah's BBQ, said Davenport.
She left work at 9:55 p.m. on Aug. 20. As she left, she called her husband to let him know she'd be stopping at Wal-Mart on the way home and to ask if he'd like her to pick up anything from the store.
The Wal-Mart security tape shows her purchasing birthday party supplies and home goods at 10:14 p.m. The exterior cameras show her getting into her truck and turning left out of the parking lot.
Authorities also confirmed she purchased gasoline at 10:26 p.m. That was the last time she was seen before being discovered at the bottom of a 70-feet-deep, kudzu-lined ravine five days later 16 miles away from her destination.
Davenport said Pennell had taken her husband's 1994 Toyota pickup to work that night so she could fuel it up on the way home after work.
She left her cell phone behind in her car.
The preliminary investigation found Pennell's truck was traveling north on U.S. 321 when she veered left through the median and across the southbound lanes. When the truck hit a hill beside the road, the impact turned the truck slightly to the right and it continued through a knee-deep kudzu patch before careening to the bottom of the ravine, according to authorities.
The truck's crushed roof indicated the truck probably rolled at least once as it crashed. Authorities do not know what made Pennell lose control of the vehicle initially, and Davenport said Pennell does not remember anything after she purchased fuel.
There is no guardrail where Pennell drove off the road.
"The dropoff is so far back they probably didn't feel like they needed one," Davenport said.
The N.C. Highway Patrol is investigating.
The majority of the search was concentrated on the ravines in the Buffalo Cove area because that's the most treacherous terrain on the route from her job to her home, Davenport said, but he added her entire route had been searched multiple times.
During the course of the search for Pennell, more than 75 rescue workers, law enforcement officers and volunteers searched the length of her route home. They searched on foot and with ATVs, helicopters and automobiles.
Rescue workers were particularly concerned about storms forecast for Tuesday.
"With this rain coming in, we just wanted to dig in and work hard," Davenport said.
Courtner said when he spotted the truck and called Amber's name, she extended her arm and waved. He called again and she stuck her head out of the truck's window but was unable to shout back.
Her injuries include lower leg fractures, a broken arm and a possible skull fracture. She also was slightly hypothermic and dehydrated when she was found.
Walker said Pennell underwent surgery Tuesday for internal injuries.
"She's just got to heal," she said. "I just kept praying they'd find her and they did."
As he looked into the kudzu where Pennell was found, Davenport said, "This is why we tell our guys never give up during a search."
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