By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-06-12 00:22:54 | Updated at 2026-06-12 22:00:24
21 hours ago
Two lifelong friends found a woman almost entirely submerged in “quicksand” mud during a spontaneous off-trail ATV ride on Saturday — and later learned she was a local who had vanished three days earlier.
Adam Sandbeck and Mike Gravalin embarked on a routine cruise through remote trails in northern Minnesota early Saturday, a tradition they’ve maintained for decades.
The duo was originally supposed to go on an organized run for a local bar, but realized they’d mixed up the dates and opted to “find some new trails” instead, Sandbeck explained to the Minnesota Star Tribune.
“Never be annoyed at your situation, because everything happens for a reason,” he said.
They made it roughly 30 miles outside of their favored RV park when they realized the ATV was almost out of gas. They found a shortcut on a pothole-laden path — and came across a stranded minivan.
Gravalin, a retired deputy US marshal, had a gut feeling something wasn’t right. His first suspicion was that someone was plotting an ambush in the shadows — until they spied a body in a puddle.
“I just remember saying to myself, ‘Oh my god, please don’t be a dead person’. She was completely submerged,” Sandbeck recounted to the outlet.
“The water was almost coming over her mouth,” Gravalin added.
When they inched closer, they could hear the woman gurgle, “Help me.”
The men didn’t hesitate. Without so much as glancing at each other, they both leapt into action, trying to glean as much information from the nearly-unconscious woman as they possibly could while calling 911.
The woman was able to explain that she had fallen into the two-feet-deep “quicksand” mud when she stepped out of her minivan several days earlier.
In the time since, all she could do was lay there and watch the water continue to rise ever-closer to her mouth.
By the time Gravalin and Sandbeck found her, she was dehydrated and severely sunburned. Her only reprieve came from overnight storms — but that only made the mud rise even higher.
“I mean, this has got to be one of the strongest women there is…You think about her just watching the sunset, the sun up and burning every day in the sun, and she still had the will to live,” Gravalin told the outlet.
The friends waited with the woman while paramedics and volunteer firefighters tended to her. They overheard one tentatively identifying her as Kathryn Woessner, a 68-year-old woman who disappeared three days earlier.
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office later confirmed that Woessner was the woman they found. She was classified as an endangered missing person due to unspecified medical conditions, according to the office’s press release.
She was treated at a local hospital and reunited with her loved ones by Sunday, according to Sandbeck.
Local law enforcement are still investigating how exactly Woessner became stranded on the remote, unmarked trail.
Gravalin and Sandbeck, meanwhile, are still trying to wrap their heads around the life-changing misadventure.
“My gut tells me if we didn’t drive through that trail, this would be a whole different outcome for Kathryn. There’s no doubt in my mind…this was the hand of God directing us to her, because there’s no reason why we would have ever gone down these little trails,” Sandbeck told the outlet.
Gravalin said that saving Woessner was “one of the most heroic experiences” in his life.
“We were supposed to be there. This was the last ditch effort to save this woman’s life,” he added.
