North Greenbush chief details search for Troy woman found in ravine

The Troy woman who fell in to a North Greenbush ravine survived thanks to the searchers’ decision to double back on an area they had already covered rather than wait for daylight.

North Greenbush Police Chief Robert Durivage said when officers managed to pull Susan Cramer-Machia 30 feet up a ravine she was essentially “pulseless.”

“If the investigative team doesn’t re-think to say, ‘we’re going to double back, we don’t care if it’s dark’... it’s a good thing we did.”

The search started at daylight on Sunday. Several hours before Cramer-Machia, 37, had walked away from the Cumberland Farms parking lot in North Greenbush. Durivage said she had stayed in the car while family members went inside the store. When they came out all they found were the shoes she had been wearing.

Police reviewed nearby surveillance cameras and discovered Cramer-Machia had headed north on Route 4, wearing a North Face jacket, pants and with only socks on her feet. It was roughly 10 degrees outside.

Searchers used bloodhounds and brought in a State Police helicopter equipped with sensors to help pick up any sign below. The dogs eventually lost her scent and the helicopter failed to find anything.

As the sun was setting later in the day, the search team, which included several State Police investigators, regrouped. There were no leads, no sign of where she might have gone or if she had been picked up along the way.

Missing persons cases like this are hard, Durivage said. Police are forced to consider possibilities that are unsettling to them and families.

“As we continued to brainstorm and run every possible scenario we could, we said, ‘No, we’re going back to come up with some other paths she may have taken,'” Durivage said.

The team began looking at other options. North Greenbush Officer John Hudson and State Police Senior Investigator Eric Cullum walked along Route 4, shining flashlights down the ravine. About a third of a mile from where she was last seen they spotted Cramer-Machia, huddled under tree brush 30 feet below.

Cullum and Hudson climbed down and found her alive, but severely hypothermic. Durivage said police don’t know exactly how Cramer-Machia ended up in the ravine but added there’s no indication that she was hit by a car. Instead they believe it’s likely that she simply lost her balance in the dark and fell over the guardrail.

Police aren’t sure how far she fell, whether she was stunned in the fall and unable to climb all the way back up or if she tried to take cover in the thick brush to stay warm and eventually became hypothermic.

As more officers arrived on scene they deployed rescue ropes and pulled the two officers and Cramer-Machia up the side of the ravine. Just as they pulled her up, the ambulance arrived to take her to the hospital.

“We were more than happy to be able to hand her off to them,” Durivage said.