MONTREAL—A 24- year-old woman was found after she spent the night in the woods near her family’s cabin in Vendee, a town two hours north of Montreal, not far from Mont-Tremblant.
“It's a very frightening thing to have your daughter lost in the bush,” said her aunt, Carol.
Polly was visiting her mom's cabin from England, went for a walk and got lost. After spending a night fearing the worst, her family couldn't be more grateful to everyone who took part in the search.
“Her mother knows a lot about the Canadian bush, but her daughter doesn't because she didn't grow up here,” said Carol.
Within minutes the Surete du Quebec was on the scene, as were rescue dogs, helicopters, volunteers and local firefighters like Ron Robitaille.
“It's easy to get lost and easy to go around in circles. There are a lot of roads we know around here but people don't know, when it's dark you don’t know where you're going,” said Robitaille.
The search went on all night with volunteers walking through the woods.
“In about ten minutes I picked up about ten members of the brigade with ATVs to give the volunteers a hand,” said Robitaille.
Polly was found at 10:15 a.m. on Friday. She found her way out of the woods and onto the side of the road. The SQ said she was cold but otherwise unharmed. Polly spent most of the day at the hospital with her mother, who told CTV by phone that her daughter heard the rescue helicopter and rescue dogs and knew she just had to hold on until morning.
“It's what any mother would do when you found out your child was OK. A general collapse into tears and happiness,” said Carol. “We do really want to thank the whole community of Vendee and the whole area around Tremblant, because people came out from everywhere and spent the night walking in the woods.”
