Chance ATV Ride Leads To Minnesota Woman’s Rescue After 3 Days Missing

The Polaris Ride Command app mentioned in the article is an app that many ATV/UTVers use for off-road navigation. PSAPs (911 Public Safety Answering Points) in Minnesota and other areas already get the GPS coordinates from cell phones, however.

ALI (Automatic Location Identification)

What it is: The caller's physical location. Function: Matches the ANI against a database to retrieve geographic data.

Cell phones: Displays GPS coordinates (latitude/longitude) and cell tower data.

https://tinyurl.com/yfn3ut47

Chance ATV ride leads to Minnesota woman’s rescue after 3 days missing.

Two West Fargo men found Kathryn Woessner, who had been trapped for days, in rural Cass County

By Shannon Geisen | sgeisen@parkrapidsenterprise.com | Forum News Service and Matt Henson | mhenson@wday.com | Forum News Service
PUBLISHED: June 10, 2026 at 3:47 PM CDT | UPDATED: June 10, 2026 at 5:54 PM CDT

“God is the hero,” insists Adam Sandbeck.

He and best friend Mark Gravalin live in West Fargo, but they both have seasonals at Crow Wing Inn & RV Park in Nevis. Since 2016, the buddies have cruised area trails on their side-by-sides on weekends.

On Saturday, they found a missing Alexandria woman.

Kathryn Woessner, 68, was last seen three days earlier — June 3 — in Hubbard County. According to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, her last known location was near the intersection of State Hwy. 64 and State Hwy. 87, south of Akeley. She was driving a black 2015 Chrysler Town and Country.

“What’s so crazy about how that all happened is we usually take our own machines. We usually have two machines. We usually stay on the routes that we’re familiar with. We’re usually going through pretty fast because we like to slip and slide around,” recounted Sandbeck to the Park Rapids Enterprise. “But, for some reason, I decided to ride with Mike. And for some reason, we decided to go and try to find new trails. And for some reason, we went down that trail.”

Describing the trail as “pretty nasty,” Sandbeck said it was filled with potholes and mud holes. They had to bypass a fallen tree.

Running low on fuel, they were making their way back.

“Out of the corner of our eye, we saw this trail, so we looped around and we took it,” Sandbeck said. If they had been driving two machines, he said they would have skipped it.

“There were other ATVs that paved the way, so we just followed it,” he said. “We come around this corner, and there’s a minivan.”

Since the men thought it was nearly impossible to get a van down the trail, they initially thought it may have been an ambush or a crime scene.

Gravalin, a retired U.S. Marshal, and Sandbeck checked the perimeter.

“As we pull up, we can see a face in that puddle,” Sandbeck said. Her face, a kneecap and maybe a hand were sticking out.

“She uttered up to us: ‘Help me.’ That’s when we transitioned our former thoughts to this is a rescue mission,” Gravalin said.

The men lifted Woessner out of the mud puddle and called 911. They said she was seriously sunburned on her face and had been stuck on her back since Wednesday waiting for help.

Extremely weak, Woessner was able to tell them her name and phone number.

“She was stuck and trying to get out, and she went around to the other side and the puddle was 2 feet deep, probably, and she slipped and she fell into it. She said it was like quicksand,” Sandbeck said.

They found her at 2 p.m. She was a couple miles east of Hwy. 87 and north on Snoway 1 trail in Cass County, or roughly five miles west of Backus.

The two men downplayed the word “heroes” when referring to themselves.

“We are 100% positive that God’s hand played a huge role. He directed us,” Sandbeck said. “People are calling us heroes. No. God is the hero. This is God’s doing. This is divine.”

They also praise the team effort that day, from the 911 operator to the volunteers who rushed to the location, and how fast they worked to get Woessner to the hospital.

Rescue crews were able to locate them because of the Polaris Ride Command function. Sandbeck said that allowed them to give dispatch their exact coordinates.

Within 15 minutes, Sandbeck said the first paramedic arrived. In less than an hour, the rescue team had departed with Woessner.

“It was amazing how fast it was,” he said.

Due to her medical conditions, Woessner was taken to Essentia Health-St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Brainerd.

Police are investigating how she ended up on the remote trail 100 miles from home.

Agencies assisting with the investigation include the Backus Fire & Rescue, Hubbard County Sheriff’s Office, Alexandria Police Department, Minnesota State Patrol, Minnesota Bureau of Apprehension and the Cass County Sheriff’s Office.