Family rescued after 17 days stranded in snow

An American family of six have been rescued after spending 17 days stranded in their motor home in heavy snow.

Pete Stivers and Marlo Hill-Stivers, with their children Sabastyan, nine, and Gabrayell, eight, and Mr Stivers’s mother and stepfather, Elbert and Becky Higginbotham, survived on dehydrated food and kept their spirits up during the ordeal with jokes from the Reader’s Digest.

They had become lost on their way home from a trip to the Oregon coast, getting stuck in up to 4ft of snow in the mountains at about 3,800ft.

Rescue teams from Oregon and California scoured the area when the family were reported missing, but they did not know exactly where the group had been heading, and eventually the search was called off.

With no mobile phone network coverage in the remote mountains, it was impossible for the family to let anyone know where they were stuck.

Then, on Monday morning, with supplies running low and news reports telling them the search had been called off, Mr Stivers and his wife decided to launch a bold bid for freedom.

Armed with a tent, wool blankets, tuna, honey and two hand-warmers, the couple set off into the snow to seek help.

A day later, a Bureau of Land Management worker found the couple.

Rescue workers in a helicopter were then able to contact the other four family members, and snow machines were sent to pick them up.

The six were reunited in Glendale, with local TV cameras rolling as Mr Stivers and his wife ran up to a van carrying their two children and his mother and stepfather.

An emotional Mrs Hill-Stivers told her daughter: “I love you, baby.”

Little Gabrayell replied: “I love you too, mommy.”

Reunited with his son, Mr Stivers said: “He had fun. They enjoyed it. They didn’t know we were in trouble.”

Chief Rick Mendenhall, of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department, told ABC television’s Good Morning America programme: “They were in pretty good shape for being out there as long as they had been.”

Mr Higginbotham said the family had begun to ration food when they were rescued.

“I’m so proud of my family,” he said. “They stuck together, they didn’t lose it.”