Photo: Instagram
Robin Fancher left her house to run some errands. She ended up trapped in her car for five days.
By Rebekah Kuschmider — Written on Apr 28, 2019
In a remarkable story about survival, an Alabama woman was rescued from a car where she had been trapped for five days. Robin Joyce Fancher, 49, left her home in Headlands, Alabama to go run some errands but she never returned. Her family grew more and more alarmed about her absence and called police to investigate. They discovered that she was out running errands and realized that something must have happened to her along the way. She was eventually found 17 miles away. The vehicle she was driving was stuck in a ditch that couldn’t easily be seen from the road. It was only due to the sharp eyes of a passing driver who has asked not to be identified that she was eventually found.
Who is Robin Fancher? Read on for the amazing story.
1. Running errands
According to reporting by The Heavy, Fancher was headed out for some mundane errands on April 17, 2019. She borrowed her boyfriend’s car and told him she was going to the post office nearby, but after that she vanished. Her brother became concerned after being unable to reach her. By April 19th, he was alarmed enough that he called police and they sent an officer to her residence to do a welfare check. There, they met her boyfriend who confirmed that she had gone out voluntarily and not come back. But since Fancher was an adult and there was no suspicion of foul play, the police were unable to do anything more.
Fancher was trapped for five days.
2. Missing person
By April 20, enough time had passed that Fancher's brother could file an official missing persons report. By that time, other family members confirmed that they hadn't heard from her either and they were all growing more concerned. The Dothan police issued an alert saying “Last seen on 04/17/2019 at approximately 10 am at the Greentree Apartments in Headland, Al. Ms Fancher left going to the Post Office in a Gold 2003 Mitsubishi Galant Alabama Tag # 37BD356. Ms. Fancher could possibly be in the Rehobeth area."
Missing person alerts went up on social media.
3. Hidden crash site
Fancher’s car was eventually spotted by a passing motorist on April 22nd who called the police for help. He reportedly stayed on the scene until emergency services arrived. Police confirmed that the crash site was hidden from easy view, according to the New York Daily News, with a department spokesman saying “It is believed that the crash occurred several days ago, but was not easily visible from the roadway.” The Heavy reports that man who called for help confirmed the problems first responders had in finding the crash site, saying “The county even went by twice, two or three times actually, went up, turned around and came back by across the bridge again. They didn’t see her when they came by looking.”
The crash site was hard to see.
4. Rescue effort
The ditch wasn’t just hard to see; fire fighters found that the positioning of the crash made it difficult to rescue Fancher once they arrived on the scene. Dothan Fire Battalion Chief Pete Webb told WDHN “The main challenges were going to be where the car was and where the victim was pinned against the driver’s door. It was off the road, and it was difficult to get the car to pull around her.” The rescue effort took almost an hour before Fancher could be extracted from the car.
Fancher was found alive.
5. Mixed message
Once Fancher was found, her family got a terrible shock. The first call they received from authorities mistakenly told them that she had not survived the crash. The Heavy reports that Fancher’s brother in law Garry Mattox was working up the courage to tell her son the news when he got a second call. Much to his relief, this time authorities told him that Fancher was alive and being transported to a local hospital for evaluation.
Family and friends are emotional.
5. Questions
At this time, there are still a lot of questions about what happened and how Fancher survived the crash. Police have no released any details of how her car wound up in the ditch or how severe her injuries are. Moreover, nothing is known at this time about how she survived five days trapped in the vehicle. According to The Heavy, Fancher is diabetic and her family is amazed that she lived through the ordeal without proper treatment.
Her family thought she might be dead.
At this time, Fancher remains in stable condition. Neither her family nor the police have released any further details.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side. She is the creator of the blog Stay at Home Pundit and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.