A Texas woman survived on pond water for several days after her car swerved off the highway and into a ravine last week.
Wanda Mobley, a 75-year-old grandmother, was three hours into her trip to an Oklahoma family reunion when she
crashed on Highway 183 on Friday, The Associated Press reported.
"From where the road was, nobody could see the car," she said of the rural area. “The windshield was cracked big time, but none of [the glass] was out. I pulled the rearview mirror off the windshield, pulled big holes in it until I could get out."
Just seconds after driving off the road, Mobley became trapped in her car in the ravine. She managed to pull herself out of the car even though she was unable to walk. Mobley had a soda with her and no cell reception. She dipped her T-shirt in a nearby pond in order to stay hydrated in the high temperatures.
Mobley's family later reported her missing when she didn't show to the reunion, the AP noted. Wesley Finley, Mobley’s grandson-in law, ultimately found her after he noticed a sign along the highway had been knocked down.
"I went back to where I knew that sign was knocked out. Got out, went and looked and saw the car parts, the bumper, the horn, the mirrors," he told the AP. "When I seen her, I hollered at her — and she answered me."
“It was surreal because we didn’t ever expect this to happen to us,”
Amanda Russ, Mobley’s granddaughter, told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth. "A missing person in your family . . . it’s just not something you expect."
Bob Elliot, Baylor County Sheriff, said that Mobley “is a very lucky lady." The nearest home to the scene of the incident was nearly two miles away.
“She's lucky to have some grandkids that were very interested in finding their grandmother," Elliot told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth of the woman's eight grandchildren who had been searching for her.
Mobley was immediately airlifted to a local hospital. She sustained a compression fracture to her lower back and other bumps and bruises but says she is “feeling better,” according to the AP.
Russ said that when she told her grandmother they had been searching for her she was not surprised.
“She goes, 'You just have to have to have faith in God that He’s going to look out for you,' and I think that is part of what kept her going — she knew everybody was looking for her and we were out searching,” she said.
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