The Tampa Tribune
TAMPA, Fla. — Kathleen Shino, the Holiday woman rescued from a swamp last month after spending three days stuck in the mud, said she heard rescuers calling for her, but she could not respond.
“I heard them, and I knew they were very close,” she said in an exclusive interview Monday on the “Today” show.
“I couldn’t respond verbally, and by the time I could, they were already gone,” Shino said.
She said she still doesn’t remember how she became stuck in mangroves and muck.
Shino, 62, the mother of four and grandmother of eight said she may have blacked out on her daily walk. She sank into the muck and only her head was above water, she said.
“I couldn’t go to sleep,” she said. “I had to stay awake especially at night. I never realized how long 24 hours was.”
She said she tried desperately to work her way free but only gotmore tangled in the mangroves’ roots and branches. “I knew I was in the water, but, I didn’t know where exactly I was,” she said.
Shino’s daughter reported her mother missing June 19 after she couldn’t get in touch with her. Her mother’s friends and neighbors said they hadn’t seen her since June 17.
Shino’s car was in the garage at her home. Her car keys, purse and cellphone were in the house. Relatives said she would never leave without her purse and cellphone.
On June 21, Alexia Cuartas and her daughter, Alexandra Echazabal, were in the backyard of their Koala Drive home when they heard what they thought was a bird or frog in the lake behind the house.
They soon realized the sound was a human voice. Cuartas and Echazabal ran inside and called 911.
Shino had scrapes on her arms and hands and the appearance of her skin indicated she had been in the water for many hours.
Paramedics needed a chainsaw to remove large branches to free Shino.
It’s unclear how Shino got stuck. The lake, which is behind an abandoned strip mall, isn’t far from her home east of U.S. 19.
She was able to see the lighter side of the nearly deadly experience. “People pay a lot of money to go sit in mud,” she said. “They are wasting their money. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
Copyright 2011 The Tribune Co. Publishes The Tampa Tribune