A brother with a million questions about how and why his younger sister disappeared for days in the mountains near Fraser got an answer to the most important one Sunday: She is alive.
Roger Guzman said a search team spent days following a set of shoeless footprints to where Kelly Guzman had collapsed in a bush wearing only a T-shirt, shorts, a light jacket and a pair of wool socks.
Kelly Guzman, a 45-year-old Denver mother of two, remains too disoriented to tell her tale as she recovers at St. Anthony Summit Medical Center, her brother said.
No one yet knows exactly how long she wandered alone through the woods, where temperatures dropped into the low 30s, though it may have been as long as a week.
“We’re amazed she survived. She couldn’t walk,” said Roger Guzman. “It was so cold. It’s amazing she survived one night, let alone four to seven.”
Guzman lost contact with his sister June 9. After a few days, the family hired a private detective after authorities said she did not yet qualify as a missing person.
“We thought she was trying to meditate or something. We thought she was just trying to get away,” Guzman said. “After a couple of days, we started questioning. She had some people in her life we weren’t sure about.”
It was not until an off-duty Grand County sheriff’s deputy spotted Kelly Guzman’s car stuck in a roadside creek Thursday that authorities knew where to search and launched a team of about 20 people, all-terrain vehicles and dogs.
They had few clues.
It appears she tried to signal for help by stretching a shiny, silver blanket across the roof of her car.
A search of her home showed she had taken an emergency kit with her, officials said, but nobody knew how well equipped it was.
The bare footprints surrounding the vehicle remained troubling to authorities.
“We didn’t know why she wouldn’t have her shoes,” Roger Guzman said. Searchers followed the prints and “got a direction where she was heading. We had no other clues. At this point, we were wondering if we were going to find her alive.”
After days of searching, someone spotted a bare and bloodied leg sticking out from a bush Sunday afternoon. It was Kelly Guzman’s.
She was incoherent, battered and suffering from mild hypothermia, her brother said.
Kelly Guzman’s family — two siblings, two grown children and a large extended family — continued trekking to her bedside in the Summit County hospital Sunday evening to celebrate their good fortune. For now, their loved one’s disappearance remains a mystery.
“Once we ask her, we’ll have a good understanding,” Roger Guzman said. “At this point in time, we don’t know.”
Jessica Fender: 303-954-1244 or jfender@denverpost.com
