Missing Minnesota woman found stuck in mud after 3 days

A 68-year-old Minnesota woman missing for three days was found alive almost completely submerged in mud over the weekend, her rescuers told a local news station.

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Kathryn Jane Woessner, of Alexandria, was found west of Backus, around 80 miles away from the city where she lives, on Saturday, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said this week.

Woessner had been reported missing and had last been seen on June 3, the sheriff’s office said.

The two people who found her, Adam Sandbeck and Mike Gravalin, told NBC affiliate KARE if Minneapolis that they had been riding an off-road vehicle on trails around Backus and Hackensack on Saturday when they found Woessner’s van stuck in the muddy area.

A closer examination showed that there was more than just a vehicle — what they said they thought was a body in a puddle next to the van.

“And then she whispered, ‘Help me,’ and it scared the crap out of me,” Sandbeck told KARE.

All that could be seen was “the round part of her face, like her mouth, her lips,” he told the station. The two men pulled her out and called 911, they told KARE.

Woessner told Sandbeck that she’d fallen in the puddle, which she said “was like quicksand,” he told the station.

She was taken to a hospital after being rescued, the sheriff’s office said in a statement.