Tamitha Garner said the couple at first stayed in their truck. They passed the time by talking and playing games on Tom's iPod. They were careful to ration their food supply and water and only turned on their truck occasionally to stay warm.

"It was brutal," she said of the weather conditions. "By 6:30 each night the windows were frozen shut." But by Monday they were down to just one granola bar and were sharing Medusa's food.

"It was time to do something," she said.

At that point they set out on foot. By the time the Garners left their truck, it was so covered with snow that the hood could barely be seen, Tamitha said.

Tom remembered watching a "Survivorman" TV show and made snowshoes out of seat cushions. He said it worked extremely well. Still, the snow sank 9 to 10 inches when he walked. Tamitha, in her tennis shoes, followed in his tracks. At times, the snow was up to her waist and she had to crawl.

The couple stayed warmed by fires that they started by igniting deodorant and aerosol carburetor fluid.

A couple of times they could hear the search plane nearby. But at other times, she said the clouds were so low that even though they could hear them looking, they knew no one could see them. The Garners guess they walked between 10 to 15 miles over the past three days before they came across the road crew.

Chuck Hulet, who was working a road grader when he saw the couple standing by the road, said, "She was glad to see us, her and her husband. They just grabbed me and gave me a big hug."

In an interview with the Deseret Morning News, Hulet said the couple told him they were out at a spring looking at horses when a storm moved overhead.

"They got stuck from the storm and spent eight nights in the pickup," he said. "The plane flew over looking for them but didn't see them."

Ironically, the crew was clearing the snowpacked road to reach a family stuck in a cabin in the area when they encountered the Garners. The crew called for help and drove them to Modena, where an ambulance was summoned.

"They were walking," said Iron County Search and Rescue commander Charlie Morris. "The vehicle, I understand, is a little further into Beaver County. They'd been walking for a while."

Hulet said the couple had been walking through four-foot snowdrifts with Medusa.

"It was wonderful to find them," he told the Deseret Morning News. "She was hugging and crying."

The couple and their dog arrived at the Cedar City hospital about 5:15 p.m. in a single ambulance.

Medical crews first brought Tamitha Garner out on a stretcher covered with a blanket. Medusa was quite frisky and bounded out of the ambulance. Officials put a leash on the dog and handed her over to an animal control officer.