Five young people are lucky to be alive after a backcountry truck crash left them stranded in freezing conditions for two nights.
The three women and two men, from Fernie and Sparwood, told the RCMP they were cruising logging roads Friday night when their truck plunged down an embankment, rolling several times.
They were all knocked unconscious but managed to escape before the truck ignited and burned.
They spent one night in the open then walked six hours to find shelter in a remote cabin where search and rescue teams discovered them on Sunday.
The 16-year-old girl and two women in their early twenties were reported missing to the RCMP on Saturday night after they did not show up to work or contact their parents.
A man was also reported missing but it was not known at the time that he and another man were with the women.
The women had been known to be cruising the Hosmer main logging road on Friday night and a text message had been sent by one of them at 5.30 p.m. that night, giving a clue to their location.
The RCMP contacted Fernie Search and Rescue and ten people began to search the area at about 1 a.m. on Sunday.
Simon Piney Fernie Search and Rescue director, said the conditions that night made searching difficult.
"We searched the backcountry roads, looking off the roads, but the weather was terrible."
"We looked for a few hours but did not find them so at about 7 a.m. when we had some light we extended the operation with about 40 people searching."
The RCMP checked cell phone activity and found that a signal had been bounced off a tower in a different area of the backcountry, so the search was widened.
Shortly after, a trapper noticed that a cabin had been broken into and informed the owner who called the RCMP.
Search and rescue found the group in the cabin 70 km down Lodgepole Road in the Flathead area just before noon on Sunday.
One of the women was coughing up blood and had suspected internal injuries from the car accident.
The other two women had injuries and were put on spine boards.
A helicopter was called to evacuate them and they were taken to hospital in Fernie.
The woman with internal injuries was then taken to Cranbrook. The two men were evacuated by vehicle.
All five showed signs of early hypothermia but Piney thinks they got off lightly. "They were really very lucky to survive," he said. "The temperature was fairly mild on Saturday night compared to a few nights earlier when it had been about 15 degrees below zero. It is extraordinary that they are all OK."