Two Maine women who have intellectual disabilities were reported missing after they got turned around while heading to the Maine Mall in South Portland to go bowling on Tuesday. Kimberly Pushard, 51, and Angela Bussell, 50, travelled through Massachusetts and New Hampshire and stopped several times to ask for directions before getting stuck in the snow near Nicatous Lake. The women had pulled onto a snowmobile trail on Wednesday and got stuck there until Sunday afternoon when authorities found them.
While in Bay State, the pair stopped multiple times to phone family members and ask police officers for directions home, but were unable to get back on track. At 1am on Wednesday, their families filed a missing persons report with the Topsham Police Department after Pushard’s cell phone last pinged at midnight near Candia and Raymond, New Hampshire.
The women were last seen 300 miles away in Springfield, Maine, where they stopped to get gas and then took off toward Route 6, hoping to head home. As more tips came in, police discovered the women had also been near Lincoln on Route 155 around 10.30 am, which lead to the Warden Service and the Forest Service to perform an aerial search, but didn’t find anything.
By Saturday morning, the women’s red Jeep ran out of gas, and so did their heat supply. The women would spend one night braving the 15-degree cold. When Game Warden Brad Richard began searching the Lincoln area, he found the red Jeep covered in snow and no footprints around. Richard expected the worse when he knocked on the door, but seconds later, the two women opened the door.
Bussell had been frostbitten at Penobscot Valley Hospital in Lincoln and was released on Sunday. Pushard had bruises and muscle pulls and was kept overnight, according to family, who said she watched Lifetime movies and talked the night away. The women survived five days in the cold and were found alive.
»Two Maine women with intellectual disabilities are reported missing«
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