Geocaching app
The Geocaching app. (Via Geocaching.com)

Four geocachers roaming a rural area of central Washington came across quite a find over the weekend when they located a woman trapped in a wrecked SUV.

According to a report in the Tri-City Herald newspaper, Tim Turner, a teacher from Plummer, Idaho, and three friends from the Spokane area were playing the treasure-hunting game when they spotted the Ford Escape at the bottom of a ravine near Benton City, Wash.

“We were out doing a hobby, doing something silly, and all of a sudden it becomes serious,” Turner told the newspaper. “It’s a weird, surreal thing. It took immediate priority of our life.”

Benton City map
Benton City, Wash., isa little over three hours from Seattle. (Via Google)

A 52-year-old Benton City woman, whose name was not released, was found in the back of the vehicle, about 150 feet down a steep embankment off McBee Road. She was hospitalized in Spokane with non-life-threatening injuries to her head, neck and arm after 14 hours in the SUV, the Tri-City Herald reported.

Geocaching allows players with GPS-enabled devices to challenge themselves by hunting for containers — known as caches — which contain log books, trackable objects and other items. Seattle-based Geocaching.com is the operator and promoter of the game’s community. There are 2 million active geocaches worldwide and Turner said there are “40 or 50” in the area he was exploring with friends.

“This qualifies as the most unusual thing we found,” Turner told the newspaper. “It was much more important than our game. We just did the right thing.”

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