Woman, 75, survives two days in Texas ravine after car crash

DALLAS – Wanda Mobley swerved to avoid something in the remote highway, and seconds later was trapped inside her wrecked car in a ravine in North Texas. The 75-year-old widow couldn’t walk, yet pulled herself through the broken windshield and survived the next two days by soaking her T-shirt in a nearby pond to get water.

From her hospital room on Tuesday, Mobley described the hours she spent hearing the occasional vehicle pass above her but being too weak and scared to crawl through the brushy area along Highway 183 for help.

Her cellphone wasn’t getting service, and all she had was soda and the pond water as temperatures swung from the 90s during the day to the low 70s at night, including rain.

“From where the road was, nobody could see the car,” Mobley told the Associated Press in a phone interview.

She said the accident occurred Friday, when she was about three hours into a 300-mile road trip to a family reunion in Oklahoma. It wasn’t until Sunday that a signal from her cellphone led her frantic relatives to search an area near Seymour, a Texas city about 140 miles north of her home in Brownwood.

Mobley – who fractured her back in the accident – was listed in good condition Tuesday at United Regional Health Care System in nearby Wichita Falls, according to hospital spokeswoman Kim Maddin.

Mobley said she had long been comfortable driving on her own – but not anymore.

She also said she never gave up hope.