A missing Alberta woman who was thought to be in the Whistler area has been located, confirmed the RCMP.
Christine “Tink” Newman had been last seen in Claresholm, Alta. on July 8, however, local police said her bankcard was used to hire a taxi in Whistler on July 17. The 29-year-old was found over the weekend, thanks in part to media reports on her disappearance, police said.
“In this case, it appears as though—I don’t know if it was your [report] or perhaps Alberta’s, but it was through your help and the public’s awareness that helped us find her,” said Whistler RCMP Staff Sgt. Paul Hayes in an interview with Pique on Tuesday morning, Aug. 6.
A former skeleton athlete, Newman had previously trained at the Whistler Sliding Centre. She made national news in 2014 after getting trapped in a tree well in Garibaldi Provincial Park for more than seven hours. Near cardiac arrest at the time of her rescue, Newman received approximately four hours of continuous CPR, believed to be one of “a half dozen people in medical history that have had CPR for that long [and recovered],” Dr. Doug Brown, a leading expert on mountain rescue protocol, told Pique at the time.
