Missing Dracut woman found alive after 3 days

DRACUT, Mass. — A missing 75-year-old Dracut woman was found alive Wednesday after being missing for three days.

Kathryn Lucier, 75, has Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and went missing Sunday afternoon. 

Volunteers searched for Lucier on foot, horseback, and even using drones.

A husband and wife were part of the search party that found her Wednesday inside a boat in Jenn Lauren's backyard on Pleasant Street in Dracut; she was taken to Lowell General Hospital where they are working on warming her up.

“She's not eating, she's taking IV fluids right now. It's just an evaluation process right now,” Lucier’s niece Cara Gagnon told FOX25.

Lauren says police and search teams had already scoured her property - her family had also joined in the search effort for Lucier.

"Her family was here and they said my yard sheltered her, that's how it went down, it was a shelter for her," Lauren said.

Police believe Lucier may have kept moving over the last three days, until she found shelter in the boat.

"Perhaps the boat, or the way she was able to hide herself gave her a little warm pocket of air there, some protection, certainly reduces the wind," Dr. Paul Biddinger, Medical Director for Emergency Preparedness at MGH said.

State Rep. Colleen Garry led a search party of hundreds, the community rallying around the well-known former teacher. On Wednesday, she got a text from Lucier's daughter, who's now by her side in the hospital

"Thank you, thank you, thank you all," Garry said, reading the text out loud.

The key to finding Lucier, rescuer say, was an ice cream bowl that she had been carrying around since Sunday.

"I saw the bowl, it just seemed like there's no way that that's the bowl. It just happened to be right down the street behind my house. Hopped a couple of fences and we found her," off-duty firefighter Justin George said.

Cox Media Group