Women spend 5 days in frigid woods after running out of gas, Maine officials say

Two missing women were found safe after spending four nights in their car in the frigid Maine woods, officials say.

Game wardens said they rescued Kimberly Pushard, 51, and Angela Bussell, 50, around 4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 26, four days after the women were last seen. The women were in Pushard’s Jeep Compass near Nicatous Lake in Hancock County.

Pushard and Bussell were first reported missing Wednesday, Feb. 22, Topsham Police Chief Marc Hagan said in a news conference Friday, Feb. 24, that was shared by WCSH.

The pair left home on Tuesday to go to the Maine Mall in South Portland to go bowling, their families said, according to Hagan. Both women have intellectual disabilities, he said.

Family members said Pushard and Bussell called them later on Tuesday asking for directions home because they had ended up in Massachusetts, Hagan said during the news conference. The women started driving home and were spotted in Exeter, New Hampshire, where they had several interactions with police and other law enforcement officers.

Hagan said officials who saw the women in New Hampshire offered them directions home, but at the time the women did not appear to be distressed or anxious. The pair were last seen on Wednesday morning in Springfield, Maine.

They stopped at a gas station in Springfield around 10 a.m., according to security footage, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife said in a news release. More video footage showed Pushard’s Jeep outside a bargain store in Lincoln, Maine, around 10:30 a.m. and later on Route 155 traveling south.

Topsham police contacted state agencies on Friday for help locating the women, wardens said. On Saturday, wardens and forest rangers searched the area using a helicopter, aircraft, trucks and snowmobiles but did not find the missing women.

Search efforts continued on Sunday, according to wardens. Around 4 p.m., the women were found alive in Pushard’s car on an unplowed road near Nicatous Lake, according to state officials. The car had become stuck and ran out of gas, so the women had stayed in the vehicle with no heat.

Officials said outside temperatures reached about -15 degrees while the women were trapped. Both Pushard and Bussell were taken to Penobscot Valley Hospital in Lincoln for medical evaluation.

Game warden Brad Richard said he was traveling by snowmobile when he discovered the Jeep down a dead-end logging road, according to an interview with WCSH. He said it was difficult to see any tire tracks because of the amount of snow, but he noticed a depression in the snow and followed it to find the car.

“Believe me, when the door opened to the car I was totally shocked,” Richard told WCSH. “In 22 years I’ve never had anything happen like that.”

Richard told the outlet the women were in good spirits when he found them, but they said they were cold, hungry and thirsty.

“It was literally a needle in the haystack,” he said. “It’s an amazing feat of theirs to make it as long as they did. No question.”

Nicatous Lake is about 160 miles northeast of Topsham.

Two skiers found dead after Colorado rescuers find tracks end at edge of avalanche

Stranded snowmobilers build snow cave to stay warm overnight, Utah rescuers say

71-year-old man dies on hike with his wife and son at Utah national park, rangers say