TWIN FALLS, Idaho — A Canadian woman rescued after spending seven weeks alone in the rugged high-desert mountains of northeastern Nevada was released from an Idaho hospital Tuesday.
Officials at St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls said Rita Chretien was discharged and was being transported to another hospital near her home in British Columbia.
The 56-year-old was rescued Friday by a group of hunters after surviving by rationing trail mix and hard candy. Just Monday, hospital officials said she began eating solid foods again, consuming salmon and green beans for dinner and a breakfast burrito and homemade salsa Tuesday. Doctors had upgraded her condition to good.
Meanwhile, rescue crews were hoping the weather improves and the risk of flash flooding lessens enough to resume the search for her husband Wednesday.
Efforts to find 59-year-old Albert Chretien were suspended Tuesday by rain, low clouds and flood warnings in a remote corner of Elko County, Nev., where Chretien and his wife became stranded in their van along a muddy road on a trip to Las Vegas.
The couple from Penticton, British Columbia, is believed to have turned off a highway and onto a northeastern Nevada mountain road looking for a shortcut to Jackpot, Nev., a stop on their way to a Las Vegas trade show. When their van became stuck in the mud, Albert Chretien set out on his own with a GPS, hoping to walk more than 20 miles to the town of Mountain City. He never returned.
Rescue teams were eager to head back to the rugged backwoods of Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, the largest forest in the lower 48 states, at 6.3 million acres, to continue their search for Albert Chretien.
If weather allows, deputies will use new information gathered from their interview with Rita Chretien and the hunters who rescued her to pinpoint their search Wednesday, said Sgt. Kevin McKinney, spokesman for the Elko County Sheriff’s Office.
“We’re going to try and get a little deeper into the area,” McKinney said. “There are plenty of roads and plenty of area to cover. But we’re trying to eliminate the most likely places now and go down those that seem a little less likely.”
On Monday, two teams slogged through tough conditions as part of their hunt. One group was flown by helicopter into the site where the van was found; another on horseback and all-terrain vehicles trekked up dirt roads outside Mountain City.
Hunters found Rita Chretien after spotting her 2000 Chevrolet van mired in mud. Alone in the rugged and isolated country, she survived on a tablespoon of trail mix, a single fish oil pill and one hard candy a day, said her son, Raymond Chretien.
