Pair stranded in woods for three nights SUV slides off dirt road near Maine-N.H. border

A man and woman spent three nights in the woods near the Maine-New Hampshire border after driving their sport utility vehicle down a snowy logging road, sliding off a bridge and getting stuck.

Dan Aiken of Derry, N.H., and Darlene Landry of Wilmington, Mass., spent the next two days digging the vehicle out from a creek bed about 10 miles from Route 16 in Errol, N.H.

The pair, who made it to safety Wednesday, said their ordeal began Sunday when they made the mistake of turning onto a logging road as they were headed home from a concert in Rangeley, Maine.

“It was a really pretty road and we kept driving about 10 miles,” Landry said. “The snow started getting thicker and we tried to turn around near this small bridge. It was icy and we slid … off the road into a 6-foot ditch of water.”

It was getting dark, and they decided to spend the night in the SUV.

Their cell phones would not work in the remote location.

“We knew there was no way our families knew where we were,” Landry said.

Their families, meanwhile, reported them missing and the Maine State Police began tracing their movements through credit card records.

On Monday, with the forecast on the radio calling for snow, the pair broke into a cabin and found it stocked with firewood and canned macaroni. Landry said they spent all of Tuesday digging the truck out.

“Dan had a winch. We tied it to a tree across the road and finally got the truck out and turned around. We stayed one more night and then started driving out,” she said.

The first mile and a half of road was slippery as the pair headed out Wednesday. But they soon hit a plowed stretch.

“We started crying when we found out we were probably going to be OK,” Landry said.