Woman Found Surviving Off Grass And Moss After Going Missing For Five Months

Updated September 5, 2021

It's always a little sad when someone you love has to move far away from you, but that feeling doesn't compare to despair and anxiety that occurs when they disappear entirely.

And unfortunately, authorities who specialize in search and rescue often have reason to confirm those fears because it's generally understood that the longer somebody goes missing, the less likely it is that they'll ever come back.

However, the world can sometimes surprise us in the most awe-inspiring ways possible when people who spend months away from those who worry about them defy the odds and find a way back.

And as we're about to see, those odds can be incredible even when those who disappear do so intentionally.

On November 20, U.S. Forest Service officials discovered a lone car sitting in a lot at a campground in Diamond Fork, Utah.

Twitter | @UCSO

As the Utah County Sheriff's Office explained in a release, that car contained camping equipment and information that identified the owner, but she could neither be found in the area nor traced to any family.

Although authorities tried to find her for months after the fact, all they had uncovered was telephone information suggesting she might be in Colorado and statements from co-workers suggesting that she was living with unspecified mental health issues.

By May 2, however, the sheriff's office teamed up with a nonprofit group called Western States Aerial Search that uses drones to find missing people to search for any sign of her where she first vanished.

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As a representative from the sheriff's office told The Washington Post, "I have to be honest — we fully expected that we wouldn’t find anybody related to that alive up here, given how long it had been. In situations like that, we often find somebody after they had passed away."

However, when the search party's drone crashed on one of its first passes, they noticed a tent had been set up where they were trying to retrieve it.

They initially thought it had been abandoned but soon heard unzipping from within it and saw none other than the missing woman sticking her head out.

Upon further investigation, the searchers fonud that the woman had been living with minimal possessions and appeared to be weakened with a significant amount of weight lost.

Twitter | @UCSO

As Sergeant Spencer Cannon told The Washington Post, "She did not plan exceedingly well for such a long period during harsh winter months, but she was resourceful."

She had started with a small amount of food that she stretched over a long period of time while also foraging for grass, moss, and river water in the surrounding area.

As authorities spoke to her, they also learned that she had intentionally stayed in the area for the past five months because she "wanted solitude and isolation."

The woman has since been taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation but the sheriff's office representative emphasized that she did "nothing against the law."

Twitter | @UCSO

As such, The Washington Post reported that she's well within her rights to return to the wilderness if desired but the sheriff's office will make more resources available to her if she does.

In Cannon's words, "For most of us, to think of someone spending the winter in an area like this, literally camping in a tent in a sleeping bag all winter long, is beyond what almost anybody would consider. But for her, it worked."

h/t: The Washington Post

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