TACOMA, Wash. — A trucker was changing a flat tire Thursday morning on Interstate 5 south of Tacoma when he saw a woman in her underwear crawl over the guardrail from a swamp near the Nisqually River.
The Washington State Patrol says she was wet, hypothermic and covered with scratches from sticker bushes.
Trooper Guy Gill says the trucker drove on the flat tire to take her to a weigh station at DuPont to call for help. The 23-year-old Centralia woman was treated at a hospital and is expected to make full recovery.
While investigators are trying to determine what happened to her, Gill says the truck driver probably saved her life.
The Seattlepi.com reported that troopers are investigating why she was there. They learned that the woman had walked from a 1994 Jeep Cherokee abandoned on a dirt road about 200 yards east of the freeway. Both she and a man were in the vehicle, and it’s still unknown why they left it. Troopers impounded the vehicle, but it’s not yet clear whether it was out of gas or disabled, Gill said.
It’s possible they were lost and couldn’t figure out how to turn around on the narrow dirt road, Gill told the PI. Troopers are still looking for the man.
