Minnesota woman rescued after being trapped in mud pit for several days

A 68-year-old woman who had been missing since June 3 was found and rescued after being trapped in a mud puddle for several days in Minnesota, USA. Kathryn Woessner was discovered on June 6 in a wooded area near Backus and Hackensack in northern Minnesota by two friends, Adam Sandbeck and Mike Gravalin, who were riding all-terrain vehicles.

According to Sandbeck and Gravalin, Woessner told them that her vehicle had gotten stuck and while trying to go around it, she slipped and fell into a puddle about 2 feet deep. She had been trapped there for several days. Before she was found, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office had already issued an endangered missing person alert, noting that she did not have any personal belongings with her and had medical conditions that raised concerns for her safety.

Gravalin told KARE11 that the area had been flooded after a recent storm. As they drove deeper into the woods, they came across "this van in the middle of nowhere that has no real off-road capabilities to get there, but it somehow did." Sandbeck recalled the moment they spotted Woessner: "We could see that there was a body in the puddle next to the van, and then that’s when it got real … When we walked up, we thought she was dead. We thought it was just a body, and then she whispered, ‘Help me,’ and it scared the crap out of me." "All you could see was just the round part of her face, like her mouth, her lips. You couldn’t even see her ears. It was all submerged," he added.

The two men quickly pulled Woessner from the mud. She later described the puddle as "like quicksand" and said she "couldn’t get out." After the rescue, which took less than half an hour, Sandbeck and Gravalin called 911. Paramedics were dispatched, and Woessner was taken to a nearby hospital. Local officials said she was expected to make a full recovery.

Reflecting on the ordeal, Sandbeck said: "We’re just two guys that were out there riding, enjoying the day together, making fun of each other all day long like we always do, like buddies, but I have no doubt the hand of God was there guiding us there. Because that trail that we found her on, we actually drove past it." "We’ve driven past it for the last eight years and never went down," Gravalin said. "And it was like, let’s go check that out," Sandbeck added.