A jogger in Eaton Canyon found herself alone and stranded on a cliff with nowhere to go. That's when a team of volunteers came to the rescue.
Two years later, she got a chance to thank the heroes who saved her life.
"I kept running and running and all of a sudden I was climbing," Alexi Coppinger said.
She was training in Eaton Canyon for a trail marathon when she lost track of the trail.
"I just stopped all of a sudden and looked around and I thought, 'I have no idea,'" she said.
She took a wrong turn and found herself stranded on a steep cliff. That's when she panicked.
Coppinger's GPS app showed her erratic movements for more than an hour that day as she struggled to find her bearings. But the cell phone was also her lifeline.
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"We received a 911 call that someone was stuck on a waterfall in Coyote Canyon," Altadena Mountain Rescue Deputy Dan Paige said.
The rescue team found Coppinger on a crevasse between two waterfalls, one of which was at least one hundred feet tall.
"She was definitely relieved to hear our voices," Paige said.
The team set up a rope rescue system. The terrain was steep, so there was nothing for Coppinger or the rescue team to grab.
"It's a situation where you have to hike up two steps and slide back one," Paige said. "I secured her in the harness and they lowered us the rest of the way down the waterfall."
Eventually they reached solid ground, 150 feet below where Coppinger was stranded.
"I was so grateful, I was really humbled," she said. "I'm just in awe of them and I really feel I owe my life to them."
The canyon where Coppinger got lost now has signs to make it easier to navigate.
