Five months after a search was launched in Utah for a woman who'd apparently disappeared, she was found alive in a campsite she had set up, the Utah County Sheriff's Office said.
The 47-year-old woman was found Sunday by searchers using a drone in the Diamond Fork area of Spanish Fork Canyon about 15 miles south of Provo, the sheriff's office said.
The drone crashed, and when the pilot and a sheriff's sergeant went looking for it, they found a tent, and the woman unzipped the tent, it said.
On Nov. 25, the woman's empty car was found near a U.S. Forest Service campground, and teams have conducted searches in the air and on the ground for her since.
The sheriff's office was clear the woman broke no laws.
The woman, who has not been publicly identified, was described as weak and underweight.
She told officials she foraged for grass and moss to survive and had access to water in a nearby river, the sheriff's office said.
It is believed that the woman was camping in the canyon by choice, and deputies took her to a hospital for an evaluation, the sheriff's office said.
Utah County Sheriff's Sgt. Spencer Cannon told NBC affiliate KSL of Salt Lake City that conditions in winter would have involved below-zero temperatures. She had a tent, sleeping bag and means to make fire.
"Regardless of the fact that she was able to survive, it was a tough existence for those months that she was up there, and we're glad we were able to make contact with her," Cannon told the station.
