About a quarter-mile down the path, Bianchi noticed an unusual figure near the fence. When the three men got close, they saw it was Tull with her knees in the air. She had been wandering in the pasture all night and had so little energy and strength left she couldnt make it over a barbed wire fence, Garber said.
My first reaction was that she might not be alive, and then all of a sudden she started talking, Bianchi said. Its like, oh my God.
When we came upon Jamie, your mind begins saying That cant be her. That just cant be her, Carpenter said.
When Tull saw the men, she had a simple message for them: Im alive.
She was lucid enough to communicate that she had no broken bones and sought shelter near a water tank.
She said that she had been praying the whole time, she was so happy that somebody had found her, Garber said.
The three men jumped into action, retrieving water from the Jeep they drove down the bumpy pasture path and dialing 911. Tull was badly sunburned from triple-digit temperatures and severely dehydrated.
That girl has a will to live, Carpenter said. Anyone who can survive out here for 17 days is an amazing gal, to me.
The reality is, had she been in the field another 20 feet, we wouldve never found her, Carpenter said. This is really, to me and everybody else who was out here this morning, a miracle. This is truly a miracle.