The soldiers were searching for a place to train near Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst Monday when they stumbled across the woman
JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST -- An 87-year-old woman stranded for three days in the Pinelands without food or water was saved by National Guard soldiers who stumbled across her car while on a scouting mission.
The soldiers from the Massachusetts Army National Guard, who were training at the joint base, found a Cadillac with all the doors open and sunshade in the windshield deep in a wooded area on Monday afternoon, according to base officials.
"At first we didn't know what to think of it because it was suspicious," said Staff Sgt. Dana Francis of G Co. 186th Brigade Support Battalion, said in a statement.
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As the soldiers neared the car, they discovered a woman slumped in the back seat. They honked the horn several times, but the woman was unresponsive.
"We were thinking the worst when we first started," said Sgt. Tommy Coppola said in a statement. Coppola eventually ran up to the car to find the woman waking up but confused.
Coppola and Francis, both civilian firefighters, brought two medics, Spec. John Shively and Pfc. Aaron Amardey-Wellington, to the scene to help assess the woman.
After being helped into an ambulance, the woman told the soldiers that her car got stuck Saturday morning in the soft sand in the woods off of Route 539.
The 87-year-old, who was not named, told the soldiers that she had no water or food, and had collected rain water to drink during her three-day ordeal. High temperatures during that stretch reached into the upper 90s.
"It was by chance that the contact team was traveling down this remote tank trail and came across the elderly woman," Lt. Col. Holloway said.
Officials said the woman suffered extreme dehydration and possibly heat illness, but her condition improved significantly by the time she was picked up by family at the base.
Craig McCarthy may be reached at CMcCarthy@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @createcraig. Find NJ.com on Facebook.