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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, who both have intellectual disabilities, were heading to the Maine Mall in South Portland to go bowling when they got turned around on the highway on Tuesday.
While trying to get to the mall, which is roughly one hour from Wiscasset, where the women are from, they ended up taking a wrong turn into Massachusetts. The pair stopped multiple times while in Bay State to phone family members and ask police officers for directions home, but were unable to get back on track.
At 1am on Wednesday, their families filed a missing persons report with the Topsham Police Department after Pushard’s cell phone last pinged at midnight near Candia and Raymond, New Hampshire, according to the Portland Press Herald.
At one point that day, the two women did find themselves back in Maine near Nicatous Lake, where they pulled off Morrison Ridge Road onto a remote snowmobile trail. Ten miles later, they pulled off the road and got stuck in the snow, where they stayed until they were rescued on Sunday afternoon.
Kimberly Pushard, 51, and Angela Bussell, 50, who both have intellectual disabilities, were heading to the Maine Mall in South Portland to go bowling when they got turned around on the highway on Tuesday
The women were found 190 miles away from where they were headed
As police were searching by Candia and Raymond, they later learned the women were last seen 300 miles away in Springfield, Maine, where they stopped to get gas and then took off toward Route 6, hoping to head home.
As more tips came in, police discovered the women had also been near Lincoln on Route 155 around 10.30am, which lead to the Warden Service and the Forest Service to perform an aerial search, but didn’t find anything.
By Saturday morning, the women’s red Jeep ran out of gas, meaning so did their heat supply. The women would spend one night braving the 15-degree cold.
Their car was found near Nicatous Lake off a snowmobile trail, where they pulled off and got stuck in the snow
They got stuck on Wednesday and use the car’s heating system to keep warm until they ran out of gas on Saturday morning. They were later found on Sunday afternoon
‘Had they run out of gas the first day it might have been a different story,’ Lieutenant Dan Menard of the Warden Service told the Portland Press Herald.
When Game Warden Brad Richard began searching the Lincoln area, he wasn’t originally planning on going near where the women were found and called it dumb luck that he did.
‘Those things don’t always happen by chance. I think kind of 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 and no footprints around.
Pushard (pictured with Bussell’s sister) had some bruises and muscle pulls and was kept overnight, according to family, who said she watched Lifetime movies and talked the night away
Bussell (left) had been frostbitten at Penobscot Valley Hospital in Lincoln and was released on Sunday
Richard expected the worse when he knocked on the door, but seconds later, the two women opened the door. He gave them snacks before telling them he had to ‘go and make contact with some people so that I can help get you out of here.’
‘Well, would you hurry up,’ Pushard said calmly.
Bussell had been frostbitten at Penobscot Valley Hospital in Lincoln and was released on Sunday.
Pushard had some bruises and muscle pulls and was kept overnight, according to family, who said she watched Lifetime movies and talked the night away.
‘She just talked and talked,’ her relative, Patsy, told the Portland Press Herald. ‘She sounded happy, just like the usual Kimmy.’
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