Woman stayed in crashed car for a week just yards from help because she was told 'not to leave vehicle if stranded'

A Texas woman who drove her rental car into a muddy pond in Idaho spent a week in the stranded vehicle before going to ask for help. Lynn S. Keesler, a Houston resident, said she survived on peanut butter M&Ms and water inside her car while it was stuck.

The 61-year-old had thought she saw a river she had to cross to reach a hotel in Burley, Idaho, but the body of water turned out to be a dairy's wastewater pond. Keesler tried to drive around it but got stuck in mud in the pond.



She later told police she stayed inside the car because she had been told not to leave her vehicle if it became stranded. She flashed her headlights throughout the first night until the battery went dead. She finally left the car Sunday, Jan. 22, when the water level began to rise in the pond and went to a nearby house for help.

Keesler thought she had only been stranded for three to five days, according to a Cassia County Sheriff's Department report, but a deputy said he had given her directions to the hotel on Jan. 15. She was examined by paramedics but declined to go to the hospital, claiming she only needed "a warm bed and a bath."

With news video.