A man who drove off the road in this week’s snowstorm spent 10 hours trapped in his car after a passing plow and rapidly accumulating snow buried it, finally managing to get a 911 call through and being rescued in the nick of time by a New York state trooper.
Kevin Kresen, 58, of Candor, drove off the road in the town of Owego and became “plowed in by a truck,” state police said.
“If he was in there for another hour his body temperature would have gone lower, and I’m convinced he wouldn’t have made it,” State Police Sgt. Jason Cawley, who rescued the man, said in an interview.
Kresen drove into a ditch around midnight and called 911 through the wee hours of Thursday but had trouble connecting. The vehicle became completely disabled, authorities said, leaving Kresen without heat.
“He finally got through a few times and was geolocated, but not very well because of the spottiness of the reception,” Cawley said.
First responders narrowed the call to a 3-mile (5-kilometer) stretch along the Susquehanna River in Owego, outside Binghamton, which got over 40 inches (101 centimeters) of snow in the storm. The storm covered Kresen’s Ford Fusion in snow, and at least one plow passed by as he remained trapped.
Cawley climbed miles of snowbanks, finally happening on one that looked slightly different and was in front of a house. He believed at first that he was looking at a row of mailboxes.
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SOURCE: NBC New York, Jim Mustian
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