Game warden talks about finding 2 missing women
BANGOR, Maine (WABI/Gray News) - Kimberly Pushard, 51, and Angela Bussell, 50, had been missing since last Tuesday.
The two left the Wiscasset area, about 55 miles northeast of Portland, heading to the Maine Mall in Portland and got lost.
Authorities said the two drove to Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and northern Penobscot County before being found in East Hancock, about 30 miles from Bangor.
Game Warden Brad Richard said he followed a hunch Sunday after he checked all the areas he had been assigned.
“Some reason I decided to go north and follow the sled trail and saw the car all covered in snow. Didn’t see any activity around it at all. So I stopped, shutting my machine off, and I hollered twice, ‘Hello, game warden.’ And probably 10 or 15 seconds and the car door opened and Kim hollered, ‘Hello.’ And I said, ‘You Kim?’ She says, ‘Yes, how did you know my name?’ And I said, ‘well, we’ve been looking for you,’” said Richard.
Pushard and Bussell told Richard they followed that road until they realized how bad the conditions were, so they stopped.
They said they ran out of gas a day and a half before being discovered, which meant they spent the night in the car in sub-zero temperatures with no heat.
“And when we were taking them out of the car, she had a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew in her inner arm, and it was frozen solid. So, if that gives you an idea of how cold it really was for these women. They were very excited that they were getting out of the woods,” added Richard.
Richard says in his 22 years as a warden, he’s never seen such a pleasant surprise.
“I was on my way out of the woods. And I picked up a piece of cellphone service, and my phone rang, and it was my wife. And she goes, she said, ‘We’ve heard that they found them.’ And I said, ‘Yeah,’ I said I was the one that found them. I said, ‘I’m on my way out with them now.’ And she goes, ‘You got to be kidding me.’ And I said, ‘No.’ She says, ‘I’m so proud of you.’ And I said, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘It’s a team effort.’ I said, ‘It was all of us,’” said Richard.
Of course, Pushard and Bussell’s mothers were happy about the news.
“I want to thank everyone, and when I was searching for our daughters, Judy Bussell’s daughter and my daughter, I thank you so much. Thank you, the warden especially for finding them safe and sound. It means the world to me,” said Patsy Pushard, Kimberly Pushard’s mother.
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