(CNN) It had been more than two weeks that she had been lost in a thick Hawaiian forest, and Amanda Eller was at an end.

The 35-year-old doctor of physical therapy was at a place where she could no longer go forward because of the terrain. With a fractured leg and no shoes, she sure wasn't going to go back.

The area she found herself in had little to no food. She stayed there for a day and a half and, as Eller's mother and a friend told reporters Saturday as they detailed the rescued woman's ordeal, she began to resign herself to the dire possibility that she might die there.

"It came down to life and death -- and I had to choose. I chose life. I wasn't going to take the easy way out. Even though that meant more suffering in me for myself," Eller told CNN affiliate KHON

She tried to keep her spirits up. She had conquered so much to get to this point.

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