A North Carolina senior citizen said she miraculously survived being trapped in her bathtub for nine days by using her foot to turn the faucet and splash water toward her face to drink after suffering a crippling fall.
Joan Rivet, 82, was getting ready for bed at her home in Clyde — nestled in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, about 150 miles outside Charlotte — on June 1 when she tripped in the bathroom and fell backward into her bathtub, tearing down her shower curtain and sending the rod crashing down on top of her, she told The Mountaineer.
“My first thought was, ‘oh my goodness, what did I do?’” Rivet, who has been a widow since 2023 and now lives alone, told the outlet while recovering from her bed at the Skyland Terrace Rehabilitation Center.
Rivet said severe back pain from the fall made it impossible to hoist herself over the edge of the tub — and she spent hours crying out for help to no avail, with only the sound of her cat Phoebe meowing outside the bathroom door.
Those hours quickly turned into days as she slipped in and out of consciousness from her injuries.
“I’d see it get dark and lighter, dark and lighter. I lost track, to be honest, of the days,” she told the outlet.
“There were times I was crying out and I said, ‘Lord, help, help, help release the pain.’”
However, Rivet, who had no children and didn’t work, said she wasn’t sure if help would come but was determined to survive the horrifying ordeal.
She said she fought through the pain of her injuries to turn the bathtub faucet with her foot and was able to drink the water splashing against her face for days to survive.
It wouldn’t be until several days later that her brother, Bill Lesko, living five hours away in Georgia, grew worried after not hearing from his sister.
“I called a couple of days with no answer,” Lesko told The Mountaineer. “I thought, well, maybe the phone isn’t connected, or she’s not answering, or she’s busy, but after several days I realized she’s not answering, something’s not right.”
Lesko reached out to her neighbors, who told him her car was in the driveway — but they couldn’t see any signs of anyone moving around in the home.
As his concerns about her safety mounted, Lesko contacted the Haywood County Sheriff’s Office to request a wellness check.
When officers finally arrived at her home on June 10, they found Rivet semi-conscious in the tub and rushed her to the hospital.
Rivet said she doesn’t remember being rescued, but when she reached the hospital, doctors told her she was severely malnourished, dehydrated, and covered in bed sores from spending days in the same position.
She has slowly regained her strength after being treated with IVs and liquid nutrition and has since been transferred to a rehabilitation center in nearby Waynesville.
Phoebe, who was left without food or water for the nine days Rivet was trapped, also survived, according to The Mountaineer.
The harrowing ordeal has prompted Rivet to plan a move to Georgia to live with her brother.
“I spent a lot of time praying, there’s no doubt about that. And figuring out how to get out of the tub, and thanking the Lord that I was still alive,” Rivet told the outlet.
“I think I stayed away from the dark side of the whole situation because once you go down there, how do you get out?”
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