Two men took a shortcut home and saved her life

A low fuel gauge may have saved a woman's life in Minnesota. Adam Sandbeck and Mike Gravalin were out on an ATV ride on June 6, 2026, when they realized they were running low on gas and cut down an unfamiliar road to get home. That shortcut led them past a minivan that looked abandoned. Gravalin, a retired deputy US marshal, briefly worried it was an ambush. It was Kathryn Woessner, trapped in quicksand for three days and nearly submerged. "I just remember saying to myself, 'Oh my God, please don't be a dead person,'" Sandbeck told the Minnesota Star Tribune. She was alive. Gravalin said her endurance stayed with him. "This has got to be one of the strongest women there is," he said, picturing her watching three sunrises and still holding on. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office posted the rescue on Facebook, where the comments filled with strangers cheering two men who had only meant to go home.