Speaker 1: As we got closer, we could see that there was
Speaker 1: a body in the puddle next to the van. Everything
Speaker 1: was submerged, separate or face, and for me it was like,
Speaker 1: Oh my God, Please don't be dead. Please don't't be dead.
Speaker 2: This is the Miracle Files. I'm Emily Jones.
Speaker 3: And I'm Holly Worthington.
Speaker 4: Sometimes the news and social media can feel pretty dark.
Speaker 2: And true crime can leave you afraid to even crawl
Speaker 2: into bed. But we're here to prove that there are
Speaker 2: more miracles than murders.
Speaker 4: In these special Miracles in the News episodes, we dig
Speaker 4: through the headlines for.
Speaker 2: You because miracles still happen and God is still good.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to Miracles in the News. Okay, we've all
Speaker 4: heard of quicksand. I'm sure I know. When I was
Speaker 4: a kid, I thought quicksand was like the scariest thing
Speaker 4: in the entire world.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, Like there's like a clip in The Princess
Speaker 2: Bride where he's stuck in the quicksand. Yes, and I
Speaker 2: swear it made me think that quicksand was everywhere. I've
Speaker 2: always convinced I was gonna fall right in.
Speaker 4: I thought that too, And when I was a kid,
Speaker 4: like our brothers, Mark and Andrew and I would go
Speaker 4: out in the sandbox and we would create all these
Speaker 4: little quicksand pits, and there were quite a few of
Speaker 4: those little army men toys that met their demise in
Speaker 4: those muddy breads.
Speaker 2: I think I dug up those army men. Years later,
Speaker 2: probably I was like.
Speaker 3: That you did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But as an adult, I haven't really felt like
Speaker 4: quicksand was a threat to me.
Speaker 2: Not about you.
Speaker 3: Body, No, definitely, not until.
Speaker 4: I heard about a story in the news recently. And
Speaker 4: it starts in June. Sixty eight year old Katherine Wasner
Speaker 4: is driving her van along a remote road. It's like
Speaker 4: kind of this muddy trail in the woods of northern Minnesota,
Speaker 4: when all of a sudden, her van gets stuck. She's
Speaker 4: completely alone. She's surrounded by nothing but trees and nature
Speaker 4: for miles and it's not like she can flag anyone
Speaker 4: down and get help because there's no one around. So
Speaker 4: she walks to the other side of the van to
Speaker 4: see if there's any way she can get the van unstuck,
Speaker 4: and suddenly she starts sinking.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, her van got stuck on the trail.
Speaker 5: So she got out and fell into the mud that
Speaker 5: she said was like quicksand this all happened east of
Speaker 5: Park Rapids.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Wait, okay, so there's just like a mud quicksand puddle
Speaker 2: right next to her van.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it looks like just an ordinary mud puddle, but
Speaker 4: it's actually about two feet deep. And when she falls
Speaker 4: into it, the mud underneath just sucks Catherine into it
Speaker 4: and it holds her in place, and the more she
Speaker 4: struggles to get out of it, it actually becomes tighter.
Speaker 3: The mud just like grips her and will not let
Speaker 3: her go.
Speaker 2: So, like, how much of her body is in the mud.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everything except her face and I'm talking even like
Speaker 3: most of her face, but like her nose and cheeks
Speaker 3: and eyes were out.
Speaker 2: But I mean, that would be so free duck, that'd
Speaker 2: be so scary.
Speaker 4: Right, So Catherine has no choice but to just stay
Speaker 4: as still as possible for hours and hours because even
Speaker 4: the smallest movement could cause her to sink further and
Speaker 4: submerge her face. And meanwhile, back home, her family realizes
Speaker 4: that something has to be wrong. So Catherine was last
Speaker 4: seen driving near Akley, Minnesota, but when she doesn't return home,
Speaker 4: authorities issue an endangered missing person alert, especially because she
Speaker 4: has medical conditions.
Speaker 3: But searchers have.
Speaker 4: No idea where she's gone, and no one knows that
Speaker 4: Catherine is about one hundred miles away.
Speaker 2: Wow, in the mud, in the mud, So why is
Speaker 2: she even out there?
Speaker 1: You know what?
Speaker 4: The articles didn't really say. I wondered the same thing.
Speaker 4: And I don't know if she just she's maybe just
Speaker 4: looking for a beautiful place to go for a drive,
Speaker 4: or maybe she's confused and it's taken.
Speaker 3: In a wrong turn.
Speaker 4: I'm not really sure. But time passes, the sun starts
Speaker 4: to go down. She ends up spending the night out
Speaker 4: in the middle of the woods, still stuck in the mud.
Speaker 4: And then another day goes by, and another day. For
Speaker 4: three days, she waits three days under the hot June sun,
Speaker 4: three nights alone in the woods, and the only part
Speaker 4: of her body above the mud. Her face becomes badly sunburned,
Speaker 4: she's dehydrated, and she's just completely unable to escape.
Speaker 2: It be pure torture. Like we have a game at
Speaker 2: my house called the Misery Index, and like ranks things
Speaker 2: one to one hundred on how awful they would be
Speaker 2: to go through. Gosh, like one's like a step toe
Speaker 2: fifties like maybe like a car accident or something. Number
Speaker 2: one hundred is being buried alive in that game. In
Speaker 2: that game, it actually is like nked torture that is
Speaker 2: possibly go through it crazy. Yeah, yeah, I this was awful.
Speaker 4: I'm sure like I, it would be such a nightmare.
Speaker 4: And meanwhile, two lifelong friends from North Dakota are getting
Speaker 4: ready for a day of writing their UTVs. Adam Sandbek
Speaker 4: and Mike Gravelan had done this for years together.
Speaker 3: They have their routine.
Speaker 4: They normally ride separate machines. They usually stay on familiar trails.
Speaker 4: They usually drive fast, but on this day, none of
Speaker 4: that happens.
Speaker 5: They say. They almost always use the same trail, but
Speaker 5: not on Saturday. I have never mapped that trail in
Speaker 5: my life.
Speaker 1: Ever. We changed everything how we do everything for some reason.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So instead of writing separately, Adam decides to ride
Speaker 4: with Mike. Instead of staying on trails they know well,
Speaker 4: they decide to explore somewhere new, and instead of passing
Speaker 4: by an unfamiliar trail that they never go down, they
Speaker 4: turn onto it. In fact, they actually drive past at first,
Speaker 4: and then they turn around and go back. Mike later
Speaker 4: said that they had driven past this trail for years
Speaker 4: and had never once thought about going down it. And
Speaker 4: this isn't exactly an inviting trail either. It's muddy, it's
Speaker 4: covered with potholes, there's even a fallen tree blocking part
Speaker 4: of it. It's the kind of road most people would
Speaker 4: probably just turn around and avoid. But these two men
Speaker 4: keep going. And then they see a van way back
Speaker 4: in the woods, and Mike immediately knows something isn't right.
Speaker 4: As they get closer to investigate, Adam notices something sticking
Speaker 4: out of a mud puddle. At first, he can't tell
Speaker 4: what he's looking at. Then he realizes it's a human
Speaker 4: face right there in the mud. I can't even imagine what.
Speaker 3: That moment was like. Be crazy, yeah, crazy.
Speaker 4: And their first thought is they think they've found a body.
Speaker 4: Their first thought is is they think they've found a body.
Speaker 1: We started walking towards the body, and for me, it
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, please don't be dead, Please
Speaker 1: don't be dead.
Speaker 5: All you can see was just her face sticking out
Speaker 5: of the water.
Speaker 1: Her ears were submerged, everything was submerged except for her face.
Speaker 1: Her eyes were open.
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, that would be shocking, shocking, I have
Speaker 6: to say, when I first found this story, somebody had
Speaker 6: created this ai image of this mud puddle with this space,
Speaker 6: and I thought it was real at first, and it
Speaker 6: was so disturbing looking, but that's probably what it really
Speaker 6: looked like.
Speaker 2: I mean, I have a clear picture in my head. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so so scary.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but then something even more shocking happens.
Speaker 1: Well, we walked up. We thought she was dead, and
Speaker 1: we thought it was just a body, and then she whispered,
Speaker 1: help me, and it scared the crap out of me.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. I'm trying to like put myself in
Speaker 2: these guys shoes and think what I would do, and like,
Speaker 2: I'm sure they're going to do something, but I imagine there
Speaker 2: had to have been a moment where they just were
Speaker 2: frozen in time. Yeah what am I seeing here?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it'd be like something out of a horror movie, honestly,
Speaker 4: I know. But Mike has actually spent thousands of hours
Speaker 4: training as a US Deputy marshal, and it doesn't take
Speaker 4: long before these two men jump into action. They immediately
Speaker 4: start digging her out, but the mud has a suction
Speaker 4: like grip on her whole body, and it ends up
Speaker 4: taking about an hour and a half for these men
Speaker 4: to finally pull Catherine from the mud.
Speaker 3: That's how stuck she was. Wow. So they then call
Speaker 3: nine one one, and here's the nine one one dispatcher
Speaker 3: summarizing the situation on the call.
Speaker 1: Came across the vands, second the mud and the female
Speaker 1: party laying in the water.
Speaker 5: Next to it. She's waiting alert but says she's been
Speaker 5: there for a couple of days.
Speaker 3: Crazy.
Speaker 4: I'm sure she wondered if that would be her final
Speaker 4: resting place at some points.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'd be so hard, so hard.
Speaker 1: She watched the sun come up and go down while
Speaker 1: she was in that puddle, and she said it was
Speaker 1: like quickset and she couldn't get out.
Speaker 2: Catherine was even trapped through the previous night's storm.
Speaker 1: She'd line in the water and you know, watching it
Speaker 1: rain and probably just hoping that the water level doesn't
Speaker 1: rise and surpass her breathing.
Speaker 2: She's a resilient woman, super strong. To be able to
Speaker 2: endure what she did for three days is absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine that moment where it's you're already stuck
Speaker 2: in mud and you can't move and the water levels
Speaker 2: are rising. Oh, you don't know what you're gonna be
Speaker 2: able to breathe at any second. Like, to make matters worse.
Speaker 3: She had to felt so panicked and to not be able.
Speaker 2: To even move this poor woman.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she definitely has to be a strong woman.
Speaker 4: So eventually paramedics arrive and they rush Catherine to the hospital,
Speaker 4: and despite everything she's endured, she's expected to make a
Speaker 4: full recovery, and she's so.
Speaker 3: Grateful to be alive.
Speaker 4: I mean, Catherine could have easily died in those woods,
Speaker 4: but God had other plans for her, and Adam and
Speaker 4: Mike were literally the angels who saved her life.
Speaker 2: Wow. I mean, it's not like there's probably a lot
Speaker 2: of research about what happens to your body when you're
Speaker 2: stuck in mud for.
Speaker 3: Three days now, I'm sure not.
Speaker 2: But it is amazing that she walked away from this alive.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And so here's the part that really sticks with me,
Speaker 4: no pun intended. In the interviews I watched, Adam kept
Speaker 4: replaying all the little decisions that day that led to
Speaker 4: them finding Catherine, and I agree with him that it
Speaker 4: had to be God, call it the miracle in the mind.
Speaker 1: We changed how we do everything for some reason, and
Speaker 1: it had to be got it had to be.
Speaker 2: Isn't that how miracles so often happened? Like something small,
Speaker 2: unexpected changes your path and leads you to where God
Speaker 2: wants you to be. Like, yeah, we hear all the time.
Speaker 3: I think many of.
Speaker 4: Us have had experiences where a wrong turn became the
Speaker 4: right turn. You know, or you have a delay that
Speaker 4: leads you to the right place at the right time.
Speaker 4: And one thing is for sure in this story, if
Speaker 4: Adam and Mike had spent that day exactly the way
Speaker 4: they always did, Catherine Wasner probably would never have been found.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And what's so powerful about stories like this is that
Speaker 2: if you allow God to use you, you can be
Speaker 2: the reason that someone else's story continues.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Well, thank you everyone for joining us today.
Speaker 3: As always, subscribe.
Speaker 4: And leave us a review, and make sure to share
Speaker 4: this story with your friends and family. And we'll leave
Speaker 4: you with a few words from the heroes in this story,
Speaker 4: Adam and Mike.
Speaker 1: We've heard that word hero a lot lately, and we
Speaker 1: ain heroes, just two guys. But I have no doubt
Speaker 1: the hand of God was there guiding us.
Speaker 4: Hey, there you go.
Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 4: If you have a miracle to share, contact us at
Speaker 4: the Miracle files dot com or find us on social media.
Speaker 3: We release new episodes each Monday.
Speaker 2: Yes, so don't forget Miracle Mondays. Subscribe on your favorite
Speaker 2: podcast platform and YouTube for amazing video content as well.
Speaker 4: Join us next time as we discover more of God's miracles,
Speaker 4: and don't forget to look for His light in your
Speaker 4: own lives