NEW YORK (AP) – A man who veered off the road through this week’s snowstorm spent 10 hours trapped in his car after a plow that was passing and rapidly accumulating snow buried him, getting he finally received a call to 911 and was rescued in time by a New York State soldier.
Kevin Kresen, 58, of Candor, veered off the road into the town of Owego and was “plowed by a truck,” state police said.
“If I had been there an hour later, my body temperature would have dropped and I am convinced I would not have made it,” the state police sergeant explains. Jason Cawley, who rescued the man, said in an interview.
Kresen entered a ditch around midnight and called 911 until the wee hours of Thursday, but had trouble connecting. The vehicle was completely deactivated, authorities reported, leaving Kresen without heat.
“It finally happened a few times and was geolocated, but not very well due to the low presence of the reception,” Cawley said.
First aid reduced the call to a 3-mile stretch along the Susquehanna River in Owego, outside Binghamton, which hit more than 40 inches of snow during the storm. The storm covered Kresen’s car with snow, and at least a plow passed while he was trapped.
Cawley climbed miles of snow banks, finally passing into one that looked slightly different and was in front of a house. At first he thought he was looking at a row of mailboxes.
“I got to find out where I was going when I punched the side window of a car,” Cawley said. “It surprised me a little bit because it was actually almost on top of the car.”
The 22-year-old veteran of the state police removed the glass and asked if anyone was inside.
“I’m inside the car and I can’t feel my feet,” Kresen told him.
“My heart skipped a beat,” Cawley said. He excavated Kresen with the help of a passerby.
Kresen was suffering from hypothermia and frostbite and had reached the point where he had stopped shaking, Cawley said.
“It’s a very bad place when the body has stopped getting hot and has stopped trying to warm up,” he said.
Kresen, whose speech was loose, was helped into a marked police car and then driven to an ambulance, where it began to heat up.
“I was grateful to have been withdrawn,” said Cawley, who described the case as his “first rescue in the Arctic.”