79-year-old dies after two weeks in desert

An elderly husband and wife stranded for two weeks in southern California’s high desert ate oranges and a pie and drank rainwater that they collected in cups, but the 79-year-old husband died at some point before the couple’s rescue.

Off-roaders found Cecil Knutson and wife Dianna Bedwell, 68, on Sunday afternoon near a Boy Scouts camp on the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation about 100km north-east of San Diego, sheriff’s lieutenant Ken Nelson said.

Bedwell wasn’t able to tell authorities when her husband had died, but an autopsy was being conducted yesterday.