A Nevada woman who was reported missing Monday morning was found clinging for her life to a tree on a steep cliff about 400 feet away from a road.
Gayle Stewart, 64, had last been seen at her Caughlin Ranch area home around 8am on the morning of Valentine’s Day, according to KRNV, who reported the information given by the Reno Police Department.
After a search party was organized, it was a friend of Stewart’s son who finally located her.
“It was really fairly miraculous that the young man decided to take a look at the slope,” Reno Fire Department Battalion Chief Seth Williams told NBC News.
The man who found Stewart said he heard “a real quiet ‘help,’” and that’s when he saw Stewart gripping the tree tightly to keep from falling down the hill, Williams said. Stewart was unresponsive after the cry for assistance.
The Reno Fire Department took about 30 minutes to rescue her after arriving on the scene, helping Stewart into a Stokes basket and pulling her back up the slope, a feat that took about 10 people.
Stewart was completely unresponsive and in extreme stages of hypothermia.
“By the time we got her down to the [ambulance], she was much more responsive and appeared to be more with it, but she was still completely uncommunicative,” Williams said.
While she has reportedly made a full recovery and been released from the hospital, Stewart is very lucky, in Williams’s estimation.
“This is one of those situations where normally, it’s a body recovery,” Williams said. “Had she not been found, it would have been likely a much different outcome.”
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