One minute, you've just picked up dinner and you're on your way home.

The next the road ahead of you is completely obscured by snow.

No matter how well your vehicle handles and snow, or how close to home you might be, no one can drive in zero visibility.

I'm Danielle, I'm Megan, and this is off the trails.

Are you already thinking, I'm so glad I live in Florida, where it's the chance of snow is.

Less than one Yeah, yes, I was just thinking that.

Actually, I'm like, oooh driving in snow.

I'm so glad.

I don't have to do that right now.

No, I could just tell by your face that you were like, mm mmm, snow is not for me.

It's still a little warmer than i'd prefer for this time of year.

I don't want it to be December and have days where I can still wear shorts and tank tops.

I would like even light sweater weather, which we do get, but it's not consistent.

But I will take this over just continuous cold and raw and icy.

I think if you and I both had their pick of seasons, it would be fall one hundred percent of the time.

Yes, definitely, fall is perfect.

And you guys have been getting quite a winter so far.

I'll read it.

Yeah, quite a bit of snow.

It did warm up on Friday and it rained, but then the next day it went back to twenty five degrees.

So anything that didn't sink into the ground, which was a lot of it because the ground's frozen, is now just flick ice.

So I prefer the snow because at least there was some traction, but now it's just icy disaster.

Yeah, that sounds terrible.

So I think we have snow on the forecast for Tuesday, so I'm kind of looking forward to it too, cover up all the brown ground that I can see again now.

The depressing browns of the season.

And yesterday was the solstice, so now the days will slowly start getting longer again, Yeah, slowly.

My goal was to take my nieces and nephews on a Solstice hike at dusk yesterday, but everybody was sick, so that did not happen.

Yeah, they're all sick.

Unfortunately.

I guess another time it just will not be the solstice.

There's always next year, that's true.

I just thought it'd be fun, like I got glow sticks.

I'm like it'll be fun to go.

Obviously, go somewhere local since it's going to be dark.

But uh, it didn't happen some Oh well, it.

Does sound like it would have been fun.

In all fairness, I should have gone.

Me and my kid.

We're healthy.

Yeah, well, you know, maybe this week sometime.

All right, So I don't think we have any business.

I think we're just gonna roll right into today.

Story sounds good.

After a streak of not doing any survival episodes, now we've got a.

Couple in a row again, that's not a bad thing.

We've had some pretty heavy stories lately, so I think these are some palette cleansers in that sense.

It's the holiday week, you know, we don't want to bring moods down.

Yes, and this one in particular is more light than pretty much any of the other stories we've covered.

And that was intentional because my feature on episode last week was a tough one and I'm like, I need to go into something with a good feeling.

Definitely.

So On the afternoon of January thirty first of twenty twenty two, Shannon saint An was working from home, but she ended up needing to make a quick trip to office to sign an emergency financial aid check for student.

A big storm was on the way, but the university where she worked was only about fifteen miles or twenty five kilometers from her house, which is the same distance from my house to my office.

It would have been less than a thirty minute drive.

So if it wasn't snowing yet, and it wasn't snow later, I totally can see myself in the same situation being like, well, I'll just run over, do what I need to do and get out of there.

Definitely, and based on the forecast, she was fully expecting to be home well before the snow really started.

She got her office, she's signed the check.

One of her coworkers had to be the second signer on the check, so they did that and she was able to start to pack up.

But as she was getting ready to leave, she noticed that her coworker had left his computer bag in her office, so she gave him a call, but he was like, h I'm already home.

He wasn't just like run right out of that office and jumped in his car again.

The snowstorm wasn't supposed to hit until later that night, and it was only four thirty, so Shandon was like, you know what, I'll just drop it by your house for you.

It was going to be just a quick detour and she needed to make a couple stops on her way home anyway, so she's like, Eh, what's one more for me?

One pit stop after work is awful, so I would not want to add another one.

Yeah, definitely.

Shannon had promised her kids pizza for dinner, so after she got gas and ran her couple of errands, she picked up dinner and was now on.

Her way home.

But it started to snow again, much earlier than was forecasted, and obviously that she expected, and it didn't start slow by any means.

Within minutes, visibility dropped to almost nothing.

And this was the kind of storm that forecasters or people in the area typically call a Saskatchewan screamer.

Oh and now that I say that, I don't think I said where this took place.

We are in Saskatchewan, Canada.

I actually hadn't even noticed that we didn't have a location yet until you said that.

I was like, oh, okay, so that's where we are.

We're in Canada.

I hadn't heard of this type of weather before, but I've heard of the Alberta Clipper before.

I haven't heard of that.

I think it's just basically a low pressure system that sort of originates in these areas and typically they then moved down into the United States.

That makes sense.

Basically, it's just.

A sudden wall of strong wind and snow, usually cold temps with it, so the snow is light and fluffy, but that blowing around is pretty treacherous for driving conditions.

One moment she was driving fine, and the next Shannon couldn't even see where the road was.

She ended up on a dirt road, and I'm unsure if that was intentional or not.

Some articles say she did intentionally take a dirt road, hoping it would be less slick than pavement, but other articles indicate that maybe she'd taken a wrong turn.

I leaned towards the latter.

Because, as you'll find out in a bit, she was not familiar with this road or area.

And I can't imagine that in a snowstorm you would take a root home you've never driven before.

That just doesn't make sense to me.

No, I agree, that's not the time to be like, oh, let's see if I got on a new route home.

It was just incredibly hard to see anything, so Fannon rolled down the driver's side window, and she was hoping to be able to use the edge of the road as a guide to just keep herself on the road.

There was just no visibility in front of her, and she could barely make out the side of the road out her passe, not out her passenger window, her driver's window.

I was picturing this scenario where like, I can't see anything.

And you're like rolling down your window trying to get a view.

And I also just pictured myself turning down my music, even though that does not impact how you see, but.

It helps so much it does.

I think that's maybe not a universal thing, but I know a lot of people are like, I'm lost.

I could turn this music off.

It does got to really help, right, But unfortunately, rolling out her window really wasn't much help, because soon she realized she didn't even know where she was anymore.

She worried that she was going to get lost or end up off the road, so she did stop her car.

She kept the engine running because again it's January and it was freezing, and she called nine one one.

The dispatcher suggested she just hanged tight and wait the storm out.

Emergency responders were obviously dealing with the same white out conditions that Shannon was experiencing, and there was already an influx of accident calls coming in.

Since she was physically unharmed and she had a full take of gas to stay warm, her situation really wasn't dire.

So they're like, hmm, I love that you called us, but you're not top of our list.

We will not be coming out to help you, at least not anytime, not anytime soon.

Yeah, which I mean makes sense.

I don't fault them for that.

I'm sure they had plenty of other truly urgent as opposed to a woman that's just like, I can't see.

Where I'm going, I pulled over.

Yeah.

Although she was okay at the moment, she did have a little bit of panic set in, especially knowing that her kids were home without her.

She later shared in a social media post what was going through her mind at this point?

Would the gas tank last until morning?

What if I was hit by another vehicle.

What if I fell asleep and the tailpipe was blocked.

What if I didn't make it home at all?

So, even though physically she was unharmed, you do start to think about all these potential scenarios when you're stranded.

Yeah, I think the exhaust one is the scariest because one would think that they should be able to keep their car running to stay warm if they're stranded somewhere.

But if that gets blocked, it's you know, it could be very tragic.

Right.

I don't know what was forecasted for snow amounts, but a big storm very likely is going to cover that up fairly quickly.

Yeah, after getting off the phone with nine one one, she really is just how unbearable the weather conditions were, so getting outside of the car wasn't an option because I think she was like, well, maybe I can.

Get out and.

Walk.

I don't think she was thinking she could walk all the way home, but walk somewhere to get some sort of assistance.

But it was just miserable outside.

The snow and wind were whipping and it just absolutely freezing conditions.

Well, and if she got out of the car to walk, if she has zero percent visibility, if anyone else was on that road and didn't see her, there's that danger as well.

Obviously she was concerned that someone might hit her vehicle.

At least you have the protection of your vehicle if that happens, if you're on the road, you have no protection.

Right, All these worries were just probably looping through her head.

You know, if someone could hit her, What if snow clouds the exhaust, What if the storm is stronger than predicted or lasts longer than predicted, Because at that point it arrived several hours before it was expected, So you're like, okay, is this storm going to be anything like it was predicted?

Her next call home?

Her next call was home.

Her kids were fifteen and ten, so not it's a bitsy so definitely old enough that her running to the office wasn't a problem, But not returning all night that poses a different situation that then becomes a bit of a problem.

She didn't want to scare them, but she knew it was very possible that she wasn't going to make it home that night.

At the very least, she knew she wasn't making it home for dinner time.

The kids had never spent a night home alone, but she tried her best to stay calm.

She let them know what was going on, and she promised to be home before they woke up.

She made that promise, not really knowing if there was any way that she could keep that promise or not.

The weather credicitions were obviously out of her control, but she's like, well, hopefully I didn't just lie to my.

Kids and it works out somehow.

I think both fifteen year old would be okay staying home alone for an overnight, but I'm sure the fact that this was totally unplanned probably was a bit unnerving.

And then also being responsible for your younger siblings.

By six pm, it was completely dark and Shannon still had no idea where she was, which added to the stress of the situation.

So not only is she stuck, she's like, I'm stuck somewhere, I don't know where.

As she's just.

Sitting there wondering if her SUV would even be visible to another passing driver, suddenly a truck just blew by her, missing her vehicle by really only a couple of feet, like an comfortably small distance.

At this point, she put her vehicle in gear and followed this truck, even though she had no idea where this truck was going.

She was desperate to not be stuck on that road all night.

When the driver of the truck slowed to make a turn.

She hadna rolled down her window hoping to be able to converse with this person, and the other driver did roll down his window, but he just yelled.

I'm going to the beach.

What.

I assume he thought he was being cute or funny, but like, sir, come on, read the room.

That's not helpful.

No, especially given the circumstances.

Maybe just like you good, because.

How often when you're driving anywhere does someone roll down their window to talk to you while you're driving?

Like?

Never, right, I would assume if someone's trying to speak to me while I'm driving, they have some sort of concern or they're alerting me to something.

It's not just like, oh hey, crazy weather or experiencing Yeah.

Obviously that guy was not helpful and just was like bye, probably didn't even say bye.

It sounds like just like, oh, I'm going to the beach, and kept going.

How disappointing.

I know.

At that point she's like, hmm, that's not helpful.

So she just put her card and bark again.

With not much else to do at that point, she ended up texting the coworker whose computer she had dropped off.

She said in a joking manner.

But basically she was like, Yo, no good deed goes unpunished.

And I feel that because, honestly, if she had not made that fifteen minute detour to drop his computer off to him, she very likely would not be in the situation at all.

She'd be back home with their kids and pizza.

And yeah, I'm sure she was trying to make light of it, but also, I hope you enjoy your computer because I'm trapped now, or maybe she's a better person than I am.

And she truly was like, isn't this funny?

Isn't this so funny about what's happening to me right now?

And that's your fault.

She did tell him that she had no idea where she was.

The coworker suggested try to use Google Maps.

She dropped a pin at her current location and she sent it to him.

I'm not sure why she couldn't use her Maps app, right, yeah, if she had service.

To be calling all these people and this was only twenty twenty two, right, yeah, three years ago, so yeah, your phone has a maps app, right, And if she was able to.

Drop a pin, I don't know.

I mean, maybe it was just one of those things.

Where even though you can do it yourself, you just want the support of another person.

I don't know.

Maybe Regardless of the technical logistics, the coworker was able to pull up a satellite image of where she was and they were able to figure out that she was on a road called Bouvier Lane.

With that information, she took her social media again.

She has total service.

It seems like sounds like she has better service than I do inside my house, no kidding.

She jumped on her local Facebook group and posted her location and gave an explanation for her situation.

I think she was hoping that someone living nearby might see it and be able to help in some way, or at least just get some con text to where she was.

And soon her post was getting some activity and someone messaged her.

Although this person didn't live in the area, they knew someone who did and was going to.

Connect them with her.

About eight PM, a call did come in and it.

Was the son of the man whose farm was along the road that she was stuck on.

I guess this road had two big farms on it, and.

This was the son of one of the owners of one of those farms.

He told Shannon that his dad was on the way to find her.

Oh that's really sweet.

Mm hmm.

About forty five minutes later, through all of the blowing snow, she was finally able to spot the beam of a flashlight and someone approaching it was Andre Bouvier, which I'm like, did you.

Name this road, because it seems like you did.

I feel like when there is someone who has one of the original properties on a road, it's pretty high chances that the road is named after them.

And where it was a dirt road, I'm not sure if it was a private drive or something.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously around here there are private roads and people can name them whatever you want to name them, but you're also responsible for maintenance and flowing or lack there up.

So I'm wondering if this was technically a public road or if it was a private road.

And again she didn't know she'd know where she was.

He had walked about a quarter of a mile or more than five hundred yards through this horrible weather defined her and on top of the weather just being absolute trash.

Andrea was eighty years old.

Stop so this eighty year.

Old guy, I was like, you know what, let me put on my yellow Raine jacket and head out there.

Shannon was feeling pretty frazzled.

She asked Andre if he would drive her car, and he told her no, that he was going to lead the way and she was going to follow him.

But he also said that she would be fine.

He's like, m mmm, I'm not driving your car.

You're going to drive your car and you will be okay.

Andre started heading back towards the house, and Shannon drove probably three miles an hour.

Honestly, how quickly is this man able to walk?

I don't know that you could him drive two miles an hour.

Yeah, I don't know if I necessarily get that approach to this, because also with the roads not in great shape, what if she tried to break and her car didn't stop or she veered like her tires aren't gripping properly.

This just I don't know why he wouldn't even just like hop in the car with her.

And well, I think because I get why he was like guiding her because visibility was so bad, Like he's like, I need to be out there to see that we're on the road, but in all this snow and wind, I feel like you're not walking at more than a two.

Mile pace even if you're not eighty But how much better was his visibility outside of the car than in I don't know he had his reasons.

We'll trust he he did.

He did trust the process, and I mean, who are we to question are because it worked.

As soon as they made it back to his house, Shannon jumped out and just gave him a big hug, like she just felt a big sense of relief.

She wasn't home, but at least she didn't have to worry about getting hit by another vehicle or running out.

Of gas during the night.

A big weight was lifted off of her.

Andre's wife, Christina, gave Shannon a hot drink and some apple sauce, just like these people are the most precious older couple so cute.

Originally, when they had got the call from Andrea's son, Andre had planned to take his tractor out to find her, but when he went to start it, it would not start, so that's why he was out on foot, and Christina was rightfully concerned about heading out into the storm on foot, but Andre was determined to help the stranger.

That his son had called about.

Not only had Andre brave the weather to go find Shannon already, but as soon as they got back to the house, he was headed back out.

He had seen two additional stranded vehicles, so he's like, well, there's more people out there.

Andrea is saving the day mm hmm with his little flashlight and his rain jacket stop so cute.

So that night a group of strangers ended up becoming this small little community before a night.

In the other vehicles were a couple with their daughter and a dad.

With two kids.

Oh wow, and one of the vehicles was very low on gas, so they probably didn't have much time with heat left.

Everyone was going to wait out the storm in the warmth and safety of Andrea and Christina's home.

They ate the pizza that Shannon had picked up, and they all told stories and got to know each other, and the rescued drivers and their passengers slept on couches and in recliners and kind of just wherever there is space.

I have to give Shannon credit that there was any pizza left.

My go to stress reliever is cheese, so those pizzas would have been gone delved into long before now.

I think people think that I'm joking, but I literally have a bag in my freezer with three mazzarella six that says emergency, emergency cheese.

It's not a joke, Like there are times where I'm just like, can cheese fix what happened today?

And doesn't fix it, but it makes it makes me feel better.

So I'm like, yeah, I need at least three mozarella sticks on hand at all times, and that's all that matters.

Three mazzarella six.

I feel like is a is a light stress day, but at least I gotta start.

So yeah, those pizzas wouldn't stand a chance, especially if you're in your car and it's cold, like I'm gonna have this hot pizza right now, Oh for sure.

By five point thirty the next morning, Andre had already done all of the snow cleanup in his driveway.

I mean gone out there at five in the morning, plowed, got everybody's vehicles ready to get out of there.

This man was amazing.

I'm less than half that age, and I guarantee he has more energy than me.

Definitely.

Honre didn't want any credit or expect any credit for anything he did that night.

That night, he later said, everybody would have done the same thing.

You don't think about it, You just do it, But I just agree.

I think we'd like to think that anyone would do the same, but I think a lot of people would not, whether people just don't want to get involved or they don't want to put themselves at risk.

You know, walking on a dark road with zero visibility definitely puts you at serious risk of getting hit.

It's not out of laziness that people might not want to go out there, but there is risk involved.

Well, even outside of the risk of a vehicle potentially hitting him, he could get turned around and now he could be lost on foot.

And as we've seen in other cases, it doesn't matter.

You could be in your backyard, but if you don't have visibility and you don't know where you are, and you just kind of succumb to your situation, and he could have been like one hundred feet from his house.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think there are plenty of instances where there has been someone clearly in need of assistance and people have not stepped in.

So we like to.

Think that if we were in need, someone would be willing to step up and help us, But for a variety of reasons, that's not always the case.

Not to mention hosting seven strangers in your home unexpectedly is not a small ask.

And not knowing anything about these people, I think that is.

My concern sometimes when I think about situations like this, not this specifically, because this is pretty specific.

But stopping to help someone or something like that.

Unfortunately, there are people who try and use the kindness of others to their advantage for malicious purposes.

Definitely, there have been instances where someone fakes being broken down or something of that nature to lure someone in to rob them or whatever.

So there always is that little bit of concern I think when people encounter these situations where someone needs help.

I agree the roads were still a mess, but at least people could see the road, which is key.

When Channa was finally.

Back on the road, she realized that she'd been stranded just five minutes from home.

Wow, she was a lot closer than she realized.

Right, the storm had just completely disoriented her, and with poor resibility, and as bad as it sounds like that night was, that five minute drive could have taken forever or worse.

She could have ended up in an accident or in a ditch.

On a blue sky day, five minutes is five minutes, but in these conditions.

You may not make it.

Yeah, Shannon managed to make it home before her kids woke up.

She was able to keep her promise thanks to Andrea.

Oh that's really sweet.

Unfortunately, Andre died in March of twenty twenty five, so just this year.

He was eighty three, and he died of a rare blood cancer.

According to his obituary, he was awarded the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Medal of Honor for his bravery and actions on that stormy night.

I love that he was celebrated for that.

I know me too.

The story may not sound as dramatic as most of the other extreme survival stories that we've covered.

No one was lost in the wilderness for weeks.

There wasn't a plane crash, there wasn't a shipwreck.

There actually wasn't even a car accident or any injury.

But each situation is relative, and plenty of times a scary or dangerous situation doesn't start with some big, grand adventure or some sort of dramatic incident.

It's just these everyday situations that end up beyond our control.

And I think this, you know, unfolds close to home for a lot of us.

You know, she was just on her way home from work, just run with some errands like this was not a concern or on her radar at all.

So I think these these smaller I say smaller, but again it's it's all relative.

You know, these situations are more likely to happen to the general population, and when you're in the moment, it's scary.

Well, I mean, yeah, you figure if you had to turn your car off, or say you ran out of gas and now you are stuck in this very cold weather and snow can start piling up, you have no heat source, if you don't have an emergency kit in your car, that could all of those little things, all of those little factors could make a difference between you being safely rescued or even self rescuing when the weather subsides, to potentially not making it out alive out of what should just be a pretty normal situation, which is just driving home, running errands and then oh it starts snowing.

Okay, like that happens.

But people have lost their lives in that situation.

Right, Yeah, So, I mean just because it wasn't like eminent life or death situation, it definitely could have been.

And you know, to her worry about other vehicles, like that's a common occurrence in bad weather or storms, even when people can see the other vehicles, you know, if someone's stuck in a bad place, other vehicles are not always able to stop in time, so there's a secondary accident or what have you.

It's I just I needed something a little bit lighter.

So this is like survival light.

And that's okay, exactly.

I agree.

Sometimes we just need to pivot to something a little bit more wholesome and with a happy ending.

In between some of these tougher tougher cases.

So that is it.

I hope everybody has a good holiday week for those celebrating holidays this week, and we'll be back next week or our last episode of the year.

That's crazy, I know.

All right, Well, we will see you later

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