An 82-year-old North Carolina woman survived nine terrifying days trapped in her bathtub after a fall left her unable to get up, forcing her to drink water by splashing it toward her face with help from the faucet she managed to turn on using her foot.

Joan Rivet, who lives alone in a mountain home in Clyde, N.C., recently shared her stunning survival story with The Mountaineer while recovering in a physical rehabilitation facility.

Rivet, a widow since 2023, said the ordeal began on June 1 as she was getting ready for bed. She took a step backward in her bathroom and suddenly toppled into the tub, pulling the shower curtain and rod down with her.

She injured her back in the fall and quickly realized she could not climb out.

Her phone was in another room, out of reach. The only other living thing in the home was her cat, Phoebe, who meowed beside her as Rivet yelled for help.

But no one heard her.

Hours passed. Then days.

Rivet told The Mountaineer that prayer helped keep her from giving in to fear as she lay trapped in the tub, slipping in and out of consciousness.

“I stayed away from the dark side of the whole situation because once you go down there — how do you get out?” she told the outlet.

As the days dragged on, Rivet knew she needed water to survive. The faucet was at the far end of the bathtub, and she could not reach it with her hand.

So she used her foot.

Rivet said she figured out how to turn the knob with her foot, then splashed water up toward her face so she could drink.

While trapped, she watched the room shift through day and night over and over again.

She described seeing it “get dark and lighter, dark and lighter.”

At one point, she recalled praying, “Lord, help, help, help release the pain.”

She also remembered thinking, “Oh my goodness, what did I do?”

Her rescue finally came on June 10, after her brother, Bill Lesko, grew worried when she stopped returning his calls.

Lesko, who lives in Georgia about five hours away, regularly checked in with his sister at least once a week, according to The Mountaineer. When he could not reach her, he called her neighbors.

They noticed Rivet’s car was still in the driveway, but there were no signs of movement inside the home.

Lesko then contacted authorities and asked them to check on her.

Haywood County Sheriff Bill Wilke confirmed that deputies found Rivet semi-conscious in the bathtub on June 10.

Rivet said she does not remember first responders taking her to the hospital.

By the time she arrived, she was severely dehydrated and had bed sores from being stuck in the tub for so long. Hospital staff treated her with IVs and gave her liquid food as she began to recover.

By the time The Mountaineer published her interview on July 7, Rivet had been transferred to a rehabilitation facility in Waynesville, N.C.

Her beloved cat Phoebe also survived.

Rivet sounded grateful for the small comforts most people take for granted.

“I’m warm, I’m dry. I had a shower this morning — hallelujah — they washed my hair,” she said. “I’ve had food and water. I’m content.”

The frightening ordeal is the kind of nightmare many older Americans and their families worry about. According to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, millions of older adults fall by accident every year.

Falls among seniors have long been part of the national conversation. In the 1980s, LifeAlert commercials made the phrase “I’ve fallen — and I can’t get up” famous across the country. More recently, 84-year-old Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell revealed that a fall led to his June 14 hospitalization, which kept him out of the public eye for weeks.

For Rivet, the experience has changed what she wants for her future.

She now plans to move to Georgia to live with family.

It also changed the way she thinks about neighbors looking out for one another, especially older people who live alone.

“I have two other neighbors that live alone, too,” Rivet said. “And now we say we need to check on one another.”

For now, she is focused on healing.

“I’m still regaining my energy, still regaining confidence,” Rivet told The Mountaineer. “Doing what I can do and believing in myself.”