Two Maine women identified as Kimberly Pushard, 51, and Angela Bussell, 50, were miraculously rescued inside their snow-covered Jeep near a remote snowmobile trail after being missing for five days.
According to the New Hampshire State Police, the women traveled to The Maine shopping center in south Portland on February 21 but got lost trying to drive home, the Portland Press Herald reported.
On the multi-day trip, they traveled hundreds of miles to Massachusetts, New Hampshire and then back to Maine as authorities tried to track their location on their cellphones before power went out.
Family members filed a missing person report with the Topsham Police Department in Maine early Wednesday morning, the Portland Press Herald added.
For his part, ranger Brad Richard said he followed a hunch Sunday after checking all the areas assigned to him.
“For some reason I decided to go north and follow the sledding trail and I saw the car completely covered in snow. I didn’t see any activity around him at all. So, I stopped turning my machine off and yelled twice, ‘hello, ranger,’” Richard said.
The ranger added that about 10 to 15 seconds later the door opened, and Kim yelled “Hello,” then asked if that was her name, and upon nodding, Richard told her that they’ve been looking for them.
Both women told Richard that they went that way, but realized the poor conditions and stopped. They ran out of gas for a day and a day and a half before being rescued, so they spent a night in the vehicle in sub-zero temperatures and no heating.
Richard explained that when the women were taken out of the car, they were very excited to be able to get out of the woods in the face of unfavorable conditions.
“I was coming out of the woods. And I got a cell phone service, and my phone rang, and it was my wife. And she says, she said, ‘we’ve heard they’ve been found.’ And I said, yes, I said that I was the one who found them. I said I’m going with them now. And she’s like, ‘you’ve got to be kidding’. And I said, no. She said, ‘I’m so proud of you.’ And that it’s a team effort, that it was all of us,’” said Richard, who has been a ranger for 22 years.
With information from WABI 5