Lost hiker located after near 8-hour search

By: Richelle Bailey | McDowell News
Published: March 01, 2010

A Marion woman is recovering after a trek in the woods Sunday left her in the bitter cold overnight as rescuers spent hours cutting their way to her.
Linda Strickland Fox, 43, of Kathy Street left her home around 10 a.m., bound for Tom's Creek Falls. Fox told her mother, Wanda, that she wanted to see where the road to the falls ended, according to Capt. Ricky Crisp of the McDowell County Sheriff's Office.
"She does have medical problems and she was not dressed for cold weather," the captain stated.
She did not take a cell phone or any other form of communication, said Crisp.
Fox's mother notified authorities at approximately 6:30 p.m., when her daughter failed to emerge from the woods.
Members of Woodlawn-Sevier, Pleasant Gardens, Marion and Hankins-North Fork fire departments, as well as the McDowell County Rescue Squad, McDowell County Emergency Medical Service, McDowell County Emergency Management, the McDowell County Sheriff's Office, the N.C. Highway Patrol and the N.C. Forest Service converged on the area at 7 p.m. to begin searching.
Ground crews were aided by the Highway Patrol helicopter and a K-9 from the Forest Service.
They searched well into the early morning hours in what some emergency personnel called "grueling" conditions. They had to contend with not only the bitter cold and wind, but also terrain made treacherous by the recent snow storms.
They had to carry chainsaws and cut a path to the victim and out of the woods.
Emergency workers located Fox around 2:25 a.m. Monday in the area of Buck Creek Gap and carried her 2 miles out of the woods to the Blue Ridge Parkway. The search was completed at approximately 5:30 a.m.
She was taken to The McDowell Hospital, where she was treated for hypothermia, according to EMS Director William Kehler. He called her condition "non-life threatening."

Lost hiker located after near 8-hour search

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