A Miraculous Rescue After Five Days Stranded in the Snow

Hi Guideposts. I’m Ruby Stein; I’m 86 years old and a year ago, I got lost up in the mountains. This is Nikki, my cat. She is a sweetheart; she’s the most lovable cat I’ve ever had. 

I left my home in Akron, Colorado, to go up to Gypsum and Eagle, where my granddaughter and great-grandkids live, so when they were going to get a big snowstorm, I took off to go home. I got on a wrong road. I had all highway and I was traveling along and soon it turned into dirt and snow, and I tried to get up on the snow and my car slid down in the mud and got stuck.

I knew I was stuck, and of course my phone service didn’t work, so my kids had no idea where I was for five days. And they contacted the sheriffs in Fort Morgan and Denver and I don’t know where all to try to get them to go out and look for me but I had to be missing for two days or something before they would do it. 

When I first got stuck and everything, I was flashing my lights and honking my horn, hoping someone would hear me, and I did that till my battery ran down, so I didn’t have a horn, I didn’t have lights, no phone service, no heat, no nothing. 

I had taken a package of sweet rolls up for my great-grandkids—I had four—I took them up for us to have for breakfast and we only ate half of one, and when I went to leave, my granddaughter thought I should take them with me, and I said, “No, I don’t need to take them; you guys go ahead and eat them.” She said, “No, Grandma, go ahead and take them.” So I took them, and I rationed myself to two bites a day and I ran out the day that they found me. That’s all the food I had; I wasn’t about to start eating the cat food.

I had my Rosary, because I’m Catholic, and I said my Rosary and I said a lot of prayers. That’s why I really didn’t get too upset, I guess, because I just felt like that, you know, I’m going to be taken care of.

Caption: On the fifth day, two hikers, Dan and Kate, found Ruby’s car. Dan carried her to his SUV and called Ruby’s kids.

So then they got me to my granddaughter’s house. Of course, they were out looking for me; Kate told them that they had me at their house, so they came home. We made it ok for five days; we got out of there alive and are happy to be here.