It probably wasn’t the hand Ethel Crescenzo was hoping to be dealt, but she made the best of it. The 79-year-old woman managed to survive five days in the desert after getting lost en route to a casino.
Police issued a Silver Alert in the Phoenix area after Crescenzo never made it home Oct. 14. Family members said she headed east toward Scottsdale but missed her destination and ended up near the California border.
Crescenzo was
lost in the Sonoran Desert north of Surprise for five days, NBC News reports. Family members said she fell down an embankment during the ordeal, in which she slept on boulders and found protection by crawling under bushes.
Authorities located Crescenzo on Sunday afternoon after someone reported spotting an abandoned white Chevy Monte Carlo with the personalized plate, “ETHEL.” After a helicopter search of the area, spotters located her 300 yards away from her car down an embankment.
Crescenzo was flown to a hospital, where she was treated for dehydration and scrapes and bruises she received from the fall.
George Crescenzo was in disbelief over his mother’s rescue and survival.
“This is a miracle, because honestly — should she be here today? No. There's no doubt, it's a miracle," he
told CBS 5, adding that his mother was not good with directions.
“She’d get lost going around the block,” he said.
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