Jamie Tull was discovered lying in the tall grass in a farming community, less than a mile from where she crashed her car on July 17. The 33-year-old woman was found to be badly sunburned and emaciated and had been surviving by eating bugs and taking water from a nearby cattle trough.

Woman struggling with emotional problems goes missing

According to authorities, the last time anyone heard from Tull was when her husband received a call from her on July 17, where she told him she was driving and that she had crashed the car into a ditch. Tull, who previously worked as a teacher at a public elementary school, was suffering from emotional problems and had reportedly stopped taking her medication for her condition when she went missing.

One last look near the crash site led to a discovery

By chance, a group of searchers returned to the scene of her Car Crash in one last attempt to find Tull. More than two weeks after going missing, the missing woman was discovered alive in a farming community on Friday, just a short distance from where she crashed her car.

Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said she had been surviving in the Le Grand farming community since the crash and had eaten some insects and drank water from a cattle trough on one of the farms to stay alive, pictured in the tweet below.

Warnke said the area where Tull was found was a desolate landscape with long grass and some homes in the distance. The missing woman had been sheltering from the heat next to the water trough.

When the woman was found she was in a weak condition and was badly sunburned and emaciated. She was, however, able to speak and told the people who found her that she had no wish to be found. She asked the searchers to give her water and food and then let her go. According to Warnke, they also found some items belonging to Tull next to a nearby windmill.

ABC News quotes Robert Carpenter, a family friend, as saying he didn’t expect Tull to be discovered when he awoke that morning and that it was a miracle that she was found. One of the searchers, Mario Bianchi, said they had seen something that looked out of the ordinary in the field they were searching and that it looked like someone’s knees. When they got closer, they found it the Modesto woman lying there. Just as they started wondering if she was alive, Tull confirmed it by saying, “I’m alive.”

According to Warnke, Tull had existed in the area through a heat wave, with only insects and cattle trough water to keep her alive. He said she was airlifted to a nearby hospital by helicopter and will eventually be released to relatives.

The LA Times attempted to contact Tull’s family for comment but were unsuccessful.

Fox40 tweeted that Tull's father said his daughter may undergo surgery for her badly sunburned skin.
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