NY motorist rescued after being stranded for 10 hours in car buried by snowplow

OWEGO, N.Y. — A New York man survived a 10-hour ordeal after driving off the road during a snowstorm and getting buried by a passing snowplow, authorities said.

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Kevin Kresen, 58, of Candor, drove off the road in the south-central town of Owego and became “plowed in by a truck,” according to the New York State Police.

“If he was in there for another hour his body temperature would have gone lower, and I’m convinced he wouldn’t have made it,” State Police Sgt. Jason Cawley, who rescued Kresen, told The Associated Press.

Kresen skidded off the road after midnight Thursday and called 911 all during the night, according to the AP.

”He finally got through a few times and was geolocated, but not very well because of the spottiness of the reception,” Cawley said.

First responders narrowed the area to a 3-mile radius, and Cawley began checking in Owego, which had received more than 40 inches of snow during the snowstorm.

Cawley said he drove to the area in Owego but was unable to locate Kresen, the Syracuse Post-Standard reported. Cawley then saw a row of mailboxes on the side of the road and stopped. He “waded through the snow to check the addresses,” the state police said in its release.

“While digging, he hit the windshield of a car,” and Cawley found Kresen, the news release stated.

“I reached in to find which address I was at when I punched the side window of a car,” Cawley told the AP. “I was a little shocked because I was actually standing almost on top of the car.”

Cawley, a 22-year veteran of the State Police, cleared off the glass and asked whether anyone was inside.

“I’m inside the car and I can’t feel my feet,” Kresen told him.

“My heart jumped,” Cawley told the AP. He dug Kresen out with the help of a passerby.

Kresen was suffering from hypothermia and frostbite, and had stopped shivering, Cawley said.

“That’s a very bad place to be when your body has stopped making heat and stopped trying to warm itself,” the trooper said.

Kresen told Cawley he had been plowed in by a truck, the Post-Standard reported. His car had been covered with close to four feet of snow.

“Stranded for more than 10 hours, with no heat due to a broken serpentine belt, the man was suffering from hypothermia and frostbite,” the New York State Police stated in a news release. “He was removed from the vehicle and taken to Lourdes Hospital (in Binghamton) for treatment.”

”He was grateful to have been pulled out,” said Cawley, who called the case his “first Arctic rescue.”

Cox Media Group