'She Looked Like a Zombie'

“How she survived, I have no idea.” That’s what a North Dakota sheriff had to say about a 19-year-old woman who emerged alive after two frigid nights in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Authorities say the woman was a passenger in a truck that her boyfriend, Clancey Lucas Lone Fight, stole on Jan. 25, the Sacramento Bee reports. Lone Fight allegedly fled from a traffic stop on I-94 and led police on a chase through the park’s South Unit, per the Bismarck Tribune. At some point, they abandoned the vehicle and took off on foot. Lone Fight reportedly dragged and punched the woman when she couldn’t keep up. They eventually separated. An extensive search effort failed to locate them. Police say Lone Fight spent the night in a cave or bluff and then hitchhiked to safety.

After two nights alone in the park, wearing only tennis shoes, pajama pants, a hooded sweatshirt, and a thin jacket, the woman flagged down some tourists. “She looked like a zombie," John Mallon, one of the tourists, told the Tribune. She “looked like she was an hour from her death,” he added. The woman eventually told Mallon and his companion that her boyfriend was running from the police and he forced her to go along. In an affidavit, a park ranger said that the woman “suffered extensive injuries due to exposure" and was scheduled to have her left foot amputated, according to the Tribune. Lone Fight, 33, was arrested at a hospital in Dickinson, where he sought treatment for frostbite, the Dickinson Press reports. On Thursday, he was hit with federal charges of domestic assault by a habitual offender and assault by striking, beating, or wounding, per the Bee. (More Theodore Roosevelt National Park stories.)