She dug her fingernails into the soil
and waited for the help that Lythcott
hoped was on the way.
Only days earlier she had been in her
classroom in Korea, where she taught
English. Her family back in Michigan
had thought she was crazy to travel to
the other side of the globe for work and
longed for her to come home.A
mong those glued to Lyth-
cott’s rapidly moving Facebook
feed was Josh Hofer, an old
friend who was sitting at his office
computer in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Like Spevak, he’d felt a jolt when he
first read Lythcott’s post, then was re-
lieved to see the pin drop Spevak had
posted. But his enthusiasm quickly
waned: The location was frustratingly
vague. He decided to fiddle with it and
opened up the pin drop on his phone
instead of on his computer. Instantly
it showed greater detail. He took a
screenshot and sent it to the U.S. Con-
sulate in Indonesia.
Out in Los Angeles, Paul Rocha was
watching the thread with rapt inter-
est. Lythcott had mustered sufficient
consciousness to share that he could
hear water nearby. Taking Spevak’s
and Hofer’s screenshots, plus Lyth-
cott’s hint about flowing water, Rocha
created a map of his own, with a circle
indicating the likeliest search area.
Then he posted it to the thread.
In Prague, Lythcott’s friend Caitlin
scrutinized the map and concluded
that the crash must have occurredbetween a certain cooking school and
a local bar.
A less sketchy picture of the situa-
tion was emerging gradually: Lythcott
and Eno were outside of Ubud in the
jungle near a place called SweetwaterFalls. On the comment thread, friends
from all over the world had begun
posting contact information for po-
lice, hospitals, and ambulance ser-
vices in Bali, and many of them were
bombarding those numbers with
calls. Someone posted the number for
the U.S. Consulate in Indonesia.I
n Surabaya, Indonesia, one island
away from Bali, Christine Getzler-
Vaughan, a public affairs officer
at the U.S. Consulate General, was
monitoring the night-duty emergency
phone when it began to ring. “My
friend posted on Facebook that he’s
hurt and needs help,” the caller said.
Getzler-Vaughan grabbed her
notebook. “What’s his name?” she
asked. “What’s his last known loca-
tion?” The caller supplied as much
detail as possible. Seconds after
they hung up, the phone rang again:
another of Lythcott’s friends. AndThe Facebook posse
supplied the consulate
with screenshots, maps,
tips, phone numbers ...Reader’s Digest Drama in Real Life82 july/august 2019 | rd.com