WILLILAMSTOWN – A split-second image of a hunter stuck in the mud, waving an arm at the distant highway, was enough for one woman to risk her own safety for a stranger's.

It was a good thing she did.

Dana Starr of Barre Town said her father would not let her get her driver's license until she could drive in reverse at high speeds. Last Saturday, she did just that, putting her unusual skill to use by backing up a mile in the breakdown lane on Interstate 89.

Her action saved Richard Abbey, 58, of Randolph, who had set out to hunt by himself without his cell phone when he suddenly felt he was having a heart attack.

"Something told me not to let him go that day but he's stubborner than a jackass," said Richard Abbey's wife of 24 years, Cheryl Abbey, who said she considered going with her husband but decided it was "too early" to get going.

By approximately 11:30 that morning, Cheryl Abbey said, Richard Abbey felt the familiar tightening in his chest that he remembered from a previous heart attack.

Alone and toting a rifle, a handgun and a hunting knife, her husband calculated the quickest way to help and headed for Interstate 89 instead of his camp or his own vehicle, she said.

"I've got to give credit that he knew to get out of the woods," she said of her husband who has been hunting since he was a teenager.

About 175 feet from the road and on the other side of a wildlife fence, Richard Abbey hit a bog and sank into the mud up to his knees, unable to move, according to Williamstown emergency medical technician Gordon Murray.

"He was fortunate that he was somewhere where somebody could see him," and that it was not dark or raining, Murray said.

And just the right person did see him.

Starr and her 10-year-old daughter Bailey were driving south on I-89 towards Rutland when she happened to look off in the distance as she whizzed past the familiar scenery on the way to pick up her stepdaughter. There Starr said she saw the odd sight of a hunter waving his arm in the direction of the highway.

"It took me about a mile to realize he was in distress," she said.

Starr's intuition told her to go back and help, so she pulled over and drove back in reverse all the way – two wheels on the rumble strip shaking the car – imagining a really expensive moving violation charge and humiliation at trying to rescue a hunter who was just signaling to his buddy, except for one thing."There was something really off about the wave," Starr said.

By the time she got back to mile marker 41, just south of Exit 5, Starr said the hunter was not looking well.

"His (waving) arm was getting lower and lower," she said.

So she pulled her van off the side of the highway, trekked through barbed wire and into the mud in her Croc clogs to get to the man to ask him if he was OK. When she got there, Abbey could barely speak, so he shook his head 'no' in answer to her question.

"Do you need an ambulance," she asked the stranger, and he nodded his head 'yes.'

She called back to her daughter, who was waiting at the van, to get out the cell phone and call 911.

"I had no idea what to say," Bailey Starr said about the 911 dispatcher's question of 'Do you have an emergency?'"

"I said, 'Yeah, but I don't know what it is,'" said the 10-year-old who said she was shaking despite wearing her bright orange hunting hat and gloves in the mild weather.

But even though Bailey Starr was shaking, she was able to convey roughly where she was and to communicate calmly and effectively with the emergency worker.

"When people call on a wireless phone it's important for the caller to know where they are," said David Serra, executive director of the Vermont 911 Board. According to Serra, unless a cell phone has global positioning technology the call won't register an exact location on the E-911 map.

Between the dispatcher, Bailey Starr and her mother, a Williamstown ambulance found its way to Abbey, whose medical emergency was made far more difficult because of the mud he was wallowing in.

It took 10 minutes for three of the four EMTs to dislodge Abbey from the mud, along with his Good Samaritan rescuer, Dana Starr. She noted that all the men in her life are hunters, and recalled Abbey carried his rifle along while he was loaded into the ambulance.

Abbey was taken to the Central Vermont Medical Center, where doctors told his wife – who had received a phone call about her husband's emergency from Berlin Police – that the person who called 911 saved his life.

"If I saw this man coming out of the woods with a gun and a rifle," said Cheryl Abbey, she doesn't know if she would have stopped for him.

"He really wants to thank this lady," she said.

"He's a lucky guy. He wouldn't be with us today if that person hadn't stopped," said Linda Fordham, Cheryl Abbey's older sister, who has been a great support over the past few days, her sister said.

As it turned out, Abbey was not having a heart attack but suffered from an abdominal obstruction requiring major surgery that landed him in the intensive care unit of Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.

"I think he's out of the woods, but not as much as I'd like," said Abbey of her husband who was moved Tuesday from ICU to the third floor of the hospital.

But, she said, "I guess the dear Lord doesn't want him yet."

The Abbey family and Fordham still have not met the Starrs, but they are determined to thank the people who saved the life of their loved one.

"I am just really glad to hear the guy is OK," said Dana Starr, when contacted by The Times Argus.

Added her daughter, "I just want to say that I hope he feels a lot better." Told that she helped to save a person's life, she had a simple one-word reply.

"Cool," she said.