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Read comments (5)Sheriff's department received a call at 11:26 a.m. from a woman who said she was on County Road 330 near Bridge Street in Sweet Springs. She was stuck in a ditch and couldn't get out, according to the incident log.
The address given to the officers was from her Garmin device. She did not know any more than what her Garmin told her.
Janis Steding, communications division officer, said the woman was from Wyoming and was heading to Virginia.
"I think she needed gas in her vehicle and then her Garmin told her a short-cut through the country to get back to I-70," Steding said.
The GPS reading said she was 1/2-mile northeast of Sweet Springs on Country Road 330. It showed she was 8 miles from the junction of U.S. Highway 65 and Interstate 70. She was 52 miles east of Kansas City.
The woman also had a 7-year-old child with her, according to the log.
Officers began searching for the woman, but had no luck locating her. At about noon, she was contacted by cell phone and she stated she turned off YY and went right, then went left on CR 330. She thought she might be near Houstonia.
She said she saw a tractor and semi-trailer on the gravel road. The road then turned to dirt and was just one-lane road with trees on all sides.
The woman was then transferred to another an officer who thought she might be near the Vogelsmeier residence on County Road 330. Another deputy checked in that area and was unable to locate her.
Steding contacted the woman again on her phone and she said she went through a small town.
"We then determined that she was probably not at Sweet Springs because she stated she did not see Sonic and gas stations, just a couple of buildings," Steding said in the incident log.
She told Steding that she turned on County Road 330 from Main Street. After looking at a map, they determined she might be near Emma. All three deputies and the fireman began scanning that area at 12:25 p.m.
Steding talked with the woman and asked if she saw any houses. The woman replied, "No." Steding asked the woman to honk her horn to see if deputies could hear her and they did not. She had the deputies honk their horns and she was unable to hear that.
She told Steding she heard some children talking. Steding asked her to get out and walk to the nearest crossroad. The woman agreed and did this carrying her Garmin.
As the woman got within 30-feet of the intersection, she saw a vehicle coming. Steding advised her to stop the vehicle and let Steding talk to the driver to determine where she was. The car approaching was a deputy.
She was located off Main Street at Emma at 12:43 p.m. Steding said she was near a field entrance where she tried to turn around and ended up in a culvert at a 45-degree angle.
Steding said the Sweet Springs Fire Department pulled the woman's car out and she was taken to I-70 and Betty's Motel.
The log reported that she decided not to stay there and proceeded eastbound on I-70.
Contact Rachel Harper at marshallcity@socket.net
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http://maptools.com/faq.html#anchor4.7
The above link has two FAQ's of particular interest: "My GPS readings are consistently in the wrong position. What am I doing wrong?" and "What kind of accuracy can I expect from my GPS?"
I'm not sure how current the information is as it pertains to current technology, but it's insightful nonetheless...
What an awful and scary feeling for this poor woman, to be lost somewhere and have it take an hour for someone to find you, with a child no less.
Let this be a lesson to us all. When traveling in an unfamilar area, you can't depend upon your GPS and TomToms. We need to be alert and watch where we are and what exits, towns and roads we pass and turn onto.
Cheetah, I have to agree. Our GPS has led us off the beaten path a time or two, and so far hasn't been able to locate the address of my sister in North Carolina at all. As a directionally-challenged person (which is why my husband gave me the GPS for Christmas), I do feel a great deal of sympathy for this poor woman.
So much for dependable satellite triangulation...
Actually, once_removed, this is probably a pretty good example of why not to put all your faith in an electronic gizmo:)
this is very news worthy