INVERNESS, Calif. (AP) — A couple who went missing in the woods of Northern California for a week survived by drinking from a muddy puddle and eating fern fronds, said rescuers who had given up hopes of finding them alive.

Carol Kiparsky, 77, and Ian Irwin, 72, were found Saturday in a densely forested area near Tomales Bay, a narrow inlet about 30 miles north of San Francisco, and were airlifted to a hospital for treatment of hypothermia.

The couple’s rescue was the first of two dramatic rescues over the weekend. Crews on Sunday found a missing man in central California, four days after his car got stuck in heavy snow. The Marin County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that the couple was not ready for interviews, but that they were in “amazing spirits and expressed gratitude to everyone.”

When Quincy Webster, an 18-year-old volunteer with the sheriff’s search and rescue team, and dog handler Rich Cassens and his golden retriever Groot found the couple Saturday holding hands, they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing, the Marin Independent Journal reported.

“We looked at each other, we’re like, we were not expecting this at all,” Webster said.

“We started crashing through the brush as much as possible. We were yelling to them to hold on, we’re coming,” he said. When Webster and Cassens reached the couple, weak and bloody, the husband had one question: “Are you real? Are you really real?”