The wife who was stranded in a southern California desert for two weeks and had prepared to die alongside her husband broke her silence in her first public remarks after his memorial service on Friday.
Dianna Bedwell, 68, and her husband, Cecil “Paul” Knutson, 79, were on their way to a Mother’s Day dinner near Palm Springs, California, in May when Knutson took a wrong turn. As he tried to turn the car around, it became stuck on a rock, and the couple was marooned in the middle of a desert on a dirt road 65 miles
northeast of San Diego, according to The Associated Press. It's not clear whether or not the couple had a cell phone with them.
Knutson initially used a cane and a walker to get around and move outside the car until neither he nor his wife could walk. After the two diabetics continued to survive on rainwater, a butter cream pie, and eight pounds of oranges for a week in their white Hyundai Sonata, Knutson died in his sleep on May 17.
"He just fell asleep," Bedwell said, according to the AP. "I thank God for that. There was no pain, no anger."
Knutson, who had been a Marine land mine demolition expert during the Korean War, was honored with a 21-gun salute and taps at the Riverside National Cemetery on Friday.
Bedwell was rescued on May 24 and airlifted to a hospital for dehydration treatment after spending two weeks in the desert wilderness. Knutson died from a heart attack brought on by the
narrowing of his blood vessels, according to The Press Enterprise.
“I told [Knutson], ‘Honey we all make mistakes. We all make wrong choices.’ That’s all that was,” Bedwell said during the memorial service, according to the newspaper. “We had 29 wonderful years together. If we make it out, fine. If we don’t make it out, fine.”
“They had a very special time together, especially as the days went on. Almost a beautiful season of their relationship,” said Bill Trok, the pastor who spoke during the memorial service. “They knew they might not be found. They had a very clear idea that this might be the end. They talked through their relationship, they talked through their spirituality, they talked through their lives together.”