Brookville women Robyn Bodine and Tracie Shoe got stuck in a remote New Mexico wilderness; family with law enforcement roots worked quickly with police, sheriff, FBI to find them
www.daytondailynews.com
By
Aimee Hancock
5 hours ago
Brookville resident Robyn Bodine and her friend Tracie Shoe are alive today for several reasons — because their families leapt into action when they went missing, because law enforcement worked together fast and well, and because the pair were resourceful when things got tough.
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After vacationing at the Riverbend Hot Springs, Bodine and Shoe checked out of their hotel room in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, on Tuesday, March 28, setting off on what was supposed to be a six-hour drive through rural New Mexico, west to Phoenix, where they planned to catch a Wednesday flight home to Brookville.
As the two continued driving, Bodine noticed the road, which was not paved, had started to become softer as the afternoon sun became warmer. The pair managed to free the vehicle once when it became stuck in the mud, but were unable to do so a second time.
“We were just down in a mud pit, basically,” Bodine said, adding that she and Shoe immediately began planning the best course of action, walking miles down the road in both directions in search of cell service.
“The first day, we walked about 17 miles,” she said, adding that they walked until they lost daylight. “There were some animal sounds, like growling, so we decided then to turn around.”
At this point, the hike back to the car was around eight miles.
“We had about two miles left when I misjudged what I thought was a mud puddle, which was actually more like a mud pit” in which she lost her shoes, Bodine said. “I had to walk the rest of the way barefoot, which did a lot of damage and hindered me a lot more.”
The women eventually reached the car and decided to stay put for the night.
“I was fearful, but what bothered me the most was that I knew at that point my kids and my husband would be starting to worry,” she said. “We talk multiple times a day and almost always say goodnight if we’re not all in the same house together.”
With little to drink, the two set off the next morning in search of a water source. The women eventually came upon an abandoned hunting cabin, where they found matches, wood, and a creek. They boiled water to drink and hunkered down for another night in the wilderness before making the trek back to the car in the morning.
“We were at the point where we thought we should keep our cell phones charged, and we had at least a little bit of water to keep us alive long enough for somebody to find us,” she said.
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