Lost mother gives birth in wilderness, rescued days later

WATCH ABOVE: Oroville woman gives birth while lost in Plumas National Forest, spending three days alone with newborn daughter. Anthony Peters reports.

TORONTO – A California woman has been rescued days after getting lost, giving birth all by herself and having to survive for three days in the middle of a national forest.

Oroville, California native Amber Pangborn, 35, went into labour Thursday and decided to get off the Oroville-Quincy Highway, north of Sacramento, and drive ‘the road less taken’ to her parents home.

“I was told about this back road and people had showed it to me a few times but I had never driven it by myself,” Pangborn told NBC.

Her decision soon turned out to be the wrong one. Pangborn’s car ran out of gas while travelling along French Creek Road and her mobile phone couldn’t acquire a signal.

“There was no cellphone service, there was no… there was nothing,” she explained. “And the car was out of gas.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "There was no cellphone service, there was no… there was nothing," she explained. "And the car was out of gas."

Her daughter, Marissa, was born at approximately 5:00 a.m. with Amber delivering the baby all by herself.

To make matters worse, the brand new mother-daughter duo was stranded in the middle of Plumas National Forest and all they had to survive on was four apples and a small amount of water, according to a report.

Aside from a nutrition challenge, the Pangborns naturally had to battle a ton of bugs and hope they didn’t cross paths with something bigger.

“The meat bees came out and were trying to get the placenta,” Amber added. “I was trying to get them not to sting her and I got stung trying to keep them away from the baby. But they went into the placenta.”

Pangborn eventually managed to start a signal fire, two days after her ordeal began, and nearly created a bigger problem in the process.

“The fire just went WHOOSH and shot up the mountainside. And I was looking at Marissa… and I was like, I think mommy just started a forest fire.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The fire just went WHOOSH and shot up the mountainside. And I was looking at Marissa… and I was like, I think mommy just started a forest fire."

Hours later a U.S. Forest Service worker noticed the fire and a team rescued the pair.

“I was just crying, I thought we were going to die. I was just so glad that someone had seen us and we were going to be okay.”

Both mom and baby were brought to a nearby hospital in Oroville where they are expected to make a full recovery.