Two Maine women were discovered alive in their Jeep after being missing for five days in 15 degrees Fahrenheit.
Kimberly Pushard, 51, and Angela Bussell, 50, both with intellectual disabilities, were heading to the Maine Mall in South Portland to go bowling when they turned onto the road Tuesday.
While trying to get to the mall, which is about an hour from Wiscasset, where the women are from, they ended up taking a wrong turn into Massachusetts. The couple stopped several times while in Bay State to call relatives and ask police officers for directions home, but were unable to return to normal.
At 1 a.m. Wednesday, his families filed a missing persons report with the Topsham Police Department after Pushard’s cellphone last rang at midnight near Candia and Raymond, New Hampshire, according to the Portland Press Herald.
At one point that day, the two women found themselves back in Maine near Lake Nicatous, where they headed off Morrison Ridge Road onto a remote snowmobile trail. Ten miles later, they went off the road and became stuck in the snow, where they remained until rescued Sunday afternoon.
Kimberly Pushard, 51, and Angela Bussell, 50, both with intellectual disabilities, were heading to the Maine Mall in South Portland to go bowling when they turned onto the road Tuesday.
The women were found 190 miles from where they were headed.
As police searched for Candia and Raymond, they later learned that the women were last seen 300 miles away in Springfield, Maine, where they stopped for gas and then headed toward Route 6, hoping to return home.
As more leads came in, police discovered that the women had also been near Lincoln on Route 155 around 10:30 a.m., prompting the US Police and Forest Service to conduct an aerial search, but no they found nothing.
On Saturday morning, the women’s red Jeep ran out of gas, which means it also ran out of heat. The women would spend a night braving the 15 degree cold.
His car was found near Lake Nicatous on a snowmobile trail, where they took off and got stuck in the snow.
They got stuck on Wednesday and used the car’s heating system to stay warm until they ran out of gas Saturday morning. They were later found on Sunday afternoon.
“If they had run out of gas the first day, it might have been a different story,” Warden Service Lt. Dan Menard told the Portland Press Herald.
When Ranger Brad Richard began searching the Lincoln area, he originally did not plan to go anywhere near where the women were found and called it pure luck.
Those things don’t always happen by chance. I think it was meant to be,” he told the Portland Press Herald.
He saw tire tracks in the snow and decided to check it out, finding the red Jeep covered in snow with no tracks around it.
Pushard (pictured with Bussell’s sister) had some bruises and pulled muscles and spent the night there, according to the family, who said they watched Lifetime movies and talked all night.
Bussell (left) had frozen at Penobscot Valley Hospital in Lincoln and was released on Sunday.
Richard expected the worst when he knocked on the door, but seconds later, the two women opened the door. He gave them snacks before telling them that he had to ‘go and make contact with some people so he can help them get out of here’.
“Well, could you hurry up?” Pushard said calmly.
Bussell had frozen at Penobscot Valley Hospital in Lincoln and was released Sunday.
Pushard had some bruises and pulled muscles and spent the night there, according to the family, who said they watched Lifetime movies and talked all night.
“He just talked and talked,” his relative, Patsy, told the Portland Press Herald. “She seemed happy, like the usual Kimmy.”
