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Posted on 01/12/2006 9:03:29 PM PST by NormsRevenge
VANCOUVER, Wash. - An 88-year-old woman, trapped in her car for six days after driving off the road on the way home from the grocery store, sustained herself by wiping condensation off the windshield with a towel and sucking the moisture, her son says.
Mary Lillian Anderson was in satisfactory condition Thursday at Southwest Washington Medical Center.
She was rescued Wednesday by a delivery truck driver who noticed the car stuck in blackberry bushes just off Interstate 5 and peered inside. He says he was braced for the sight of a body.
"She was sitting right there, staring back at me," said Andrew Thompson, who delivers propane in rural Clark County. "She looked very happy."
Anderson disappeared Jan. 6 after she misjudged a corner, drove across a broad gravel-covered shoulder and tipped her car into a steep drop-off filled with blackberry bushes.
Her 1997 Cadillac Seville was hidden from view but within earshot of I-5.
She was reported missing Jan. 7 when her neighbors at the Whipple Creek Condominiums noticed she hadn't come home.
The Clark County sheriff's office issued a missing persons report but did not conduct a search because they didn't know where to begin, Detective Rick Buckner said. When Buckner found no activity on Anderson's credit cards or bank account, he feared she was dead.
Sometime Monday or Tuesday, a deputy pulled a car over in the gravel turnout a few feet from Anderson's car, but thick blackberry bushes and other brush blocked the officer's view of her car.
Thompson said the height of his truck's cab gave him a perfect view Wednesday of the cranberry-colored car down the embankment.
"If there had been leaves on the trees, I don't think she would have made it, I wouldn't have been able to see her," he said.
"The lady is just very, very lucky to be alive," Buckner said.
Thompson said he tried to open the car door but found it wedged shut.
"I yelled back to her that I was going to get help," he said. He climbed back up the bank, called 911, and then went back to the car. In time he was able to wrench open the door, and he waited with Anderson for rescue crews.
"She held my hand," he said.
One of Anderson's sons, Rob Johnson of Pendleton, Ore., said his mother's groceries were out of reach in the trunk. She kept herself distracted by harvesting water and by praying, talking to her guardian angel and counting to 500 and back, over and over again, he said.
"We're very thankful to him," he said of Thompson. "He's definitely sort of an angel."
Tough Granny! Glad all is well with her......quite a remarkable story!
WOW!!! Great story Norm...
Couldn't she have rolled down a window and crawled out???
Or used one of the passenger doors?
Or popped the trunk, folded down the rear seats and squirmed her way out through the trunk?
I have a hard time believing that her car had all the doors, rolling windows, and trunk wedged tightly shut.
There should have been an opening from the backseat into the trunk. I have driven GM cars for many years and a '97 Cadillac would certainly have this feature.
Keep in mind she's 88.
The car was tipped on its side, no telling from the article what kept her either wedged in or she may have been to weak to pull herself out as you described.
We'll see what else comes out about her ordeal.
When you get real old just falling down in your own house can become a trap
You think an 88 year old woman just sits in the car for 6 days for fun?
Give her a break! She's 88 years old.
The car almost surely has power windows.
Maybe the impact messed them up.
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes!
Remarkable story indeed.
My grandmother had seen a lot of temporary problems in life and she had great faith. Once when she was nearing 85 her power went out in cold weather. I came up to be with her and asked if she wanted to go to another relative that had power. She said "Heavens no... I lived without power before."
This is lesson in recycling.
By drinking the condensation from the windows she was reusing the water that exited her as vapor from her lungs, mouth, and skin.
I find the lack of action by the police to be very disturbing. Have they no aircraft?
Perhaps the lady's chances of being found by the police would have been enhanced had her friends accused her of a "hate crime", or of having harmed the environment, rather than reporting her missing.
Sometimes in those situations, people are traumatized to the point that some normal actions - like opening the trunk and pulling down the back seat to crawl out of the trunk - just never occur to people. And .. she could have had a minor stroke and didn't have all her physical capabilities working properly.
None of us know what we will or won't do in that type of situation.
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And her left turn signal was on whole time. In an effort to signal rescuers of course. /tastelesshumor
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