Post by LadyBlue on Dec 22, 2011 16:02:13 GMT -5
Snowbound in car for 9 days, woman 'thankful to be alive'
Very hungry, thirsty and cold was how rescuers described an Arizona State University student they discovered Wednesday stuck in her snowbound car for nine days after she vanished. On Thursday, Lauren Weinberg was released from the hospital, grateful to be alive.
"I am so thankful to be alive and warm," Weinberg, 23, said through a spokeswoman at the Flagstaff Medical Center. "Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers, because they worked. There were times I was afraid but mostly I had faith I would be found."
Weinberg left her mother's home in south Phoenix on Dec. 11 and told authorities she became stuck in the snow a day later, Coconino County sheriff's spokesman Gerry Blair said.
Two U.S. Forest Service employees on snowmobiles found her 46 miles southeast of Winslow while they were checking if gates on forest roads were closed.
"They described her condition as coherent and lucid but very hungry, thirsty and cold," Blair stated.
The undergraduate student was driving around with no specific destination, Blair said, when she drove south from Winslow toward the Mogollon Rim — a prominent line of cliffs that divides the state's high country from the desert.
The paved road turned into a dirt road. Weinberg stopped her vehicle at a fence line and when she attempted to move a gate she found that it was stuck in the snow, according to Blair. Soon, her car was stuck as well.
Weinberg had two candy bars with her and told a sheriff's deputy that she put snow in a water bottle and placed it atop the sedan she was driving so it would melt, Blair said. She wasn't prepared for the winter conditions and did not have a heavy coat or blankets, Blair said.
Near-zero temperatures
Weather forecasters and authorities said her survival was remarkable, given the more than 2 feet of snow in the area and temperatures that dipped to near-zero some of the nights. Blair said Weinberg had a cellphone but the battery was dead.
"It's pretty harrowing that she'd been there since the 12th in an area that's totally foreign to her," he said. "We're certainly very happy that we found her, and we found her alive."
A strong winter storm hit the area the day Weinberg became stranded and hung around for two more days, followed by even colder temperatures, said Chris Outler of the National Weather Service in Flagstaff. Daytime temperatures in the town of Heber, about 20 miles to the northeast, were in the mid- to low-30s over the past 10 days.
today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45758570/ns/us_news-life/
Very hungry, thirsty and cold was how rescuers described an Arizona State University student they discovered Wednesday stuck in her snowbound car for nine days after she vanished. On Thursday, Lauren Weinberg was released from the hospital, grateful to be alive.
"I am so thankful to be alive and warm," Weinberg, 23, said through a spokeswoman at the Flagstaff Medical Center. "Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers, because they worked. There were times I was afraid but mostly I had faith I would be found."
Weinberg left her mother's home in south Phoenix on Dec. 11 and told authorities she became stuck in the snow a day later, Coconino County sheriff's spokesman Gerry Blair said.
Two U.S. Forest Service employees on snowmobiles found her 46 miles southeast of Winslow while they were checking if gates on forest roads were closed.
"They described her condition as coherent and lucid but very hungry, thirsty and cold," Blair stated.
The undergraduate student was driving around with no specific destination, Blair said, when she drove south from Winslow toward the Mogollon Rim — a prominent line of cliffs that divides the state's high country from the desert.
The paved road turned into a dirt road. Weinberg stopped her vehicle at a fence line and when she attempted to move a gate she found that it was stuck in the snow, according to Blair. Soon, her car was stuck as well.
Weinberg had two candy bars with her and told a sheriff's deputy that she put snow in a water bottle and placed it atop the sedan she was driving so it would melt, Blair said. She wasn't prepared for the winter conditions and did not have a heavy coat or blankets, Blair said.
Near-zero temperatures
Weather forecasters and authorities said her survival was remarkable, given the more than 2 feet of snow in the area and temperatures that dipped to near-zero some of the nights. Blair said Weinberg had a cellphone but the battery was dead.
"It's pretty harrowing that she'd been there since the 12th in an area that's totally foreign to her," he said. "We're certainly very happy that we found her, and we found her alive."
A strong winter storm hit the area the day Weinberg became stranded and hung around for two more days, followed by even colder temperatures, said Chris Outler of the National Weather Service in Flagstaff. Daytime temperatures in the town of Heber, about 20 miles to the northeast, were in the mid- to low-30s over the past 10 days.
today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45758570/ns/us_news-life/