Snowplow Hits Buried Car, Then a Bigger Surprise

A snowplow driver in South Lake Tahoe, California, may have saved a woman's life by accidentally hitting her buried car. When he heard the collision, the snowplow operator called police, and he helped authorities dig the car out so it could be towed. It was only when they saw a hand against the window that they realized someone was inside, reports the Reno Gazette Journal. They pulled out a 48-year-old woman, who was uninjured and said she had been in the car no longer than five hours.

"With that much snow piled on top of the car ... if the snowplow hadn't hit the back of it we could be having a much different conversation," says a city spokesperson who speculates it could have been days before she was found. "She could have suffocated." Police believe the woman is homeless and may have been living in the car, which was illegally parked, per KOLO TV. She had no phone to call for help once the car became buried. (Elsewhere, a trapped driver in Buffalo thought she was a goner and wrote letters to her children.)