Sheriff: Missing Calif. woman survived on bugs, dirty cattle trough She told authorities that she did not want to be found 
 
 Photo: Andrew Kuhn, MBO FILE - Merced Co. Sheriff Vern Warnke speaks during a news... 
 
 FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — A missing California woman who was found alive Friday in a cattle ranching area after vanishing more than two weeks ago survived by eating a few bugs and drinking from a dirty cattle trough, authorities said. She told rescuers that she did not want to be found. 
 
 The former public elementary school teacher, Jamie Tull, was struggling with emotional issues and was last heard from on July 17 when she called her husband while she was driving and crashed into a ditch, authorities said. 
 
 Searchers found her emaciated, badly sunburned and lying in tall grass less than a mile (1.6 kilometers) away from the crash site near the tiny central California farming community of Le Grand, said Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke. Tull was weak but able to speak. 
 
 Warnke said she told searchers after they found her: "Give me food and water and let me go." 
 
 Warnke described the surrounding landscape as desolate grazing land with homes visible in the distance. 
 
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 Authorities were piecing together Tull's movements while she was missing, but said it appeared she remained in the area with no shelter except for a water tank that provided her with shade. 
 
 "She hunkered down. She didn't want to be found," Warnke said. 
 
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 Tull, 33, endured a scorching heatwave and told rescuers that she ate two grasshoppers and a fly and drank water from the cattle trough, Warnke said. He said she had stopped taking prescription medicine to help her with emotional issues. 
 
 She was taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital for medical treatment and will be returned to relatives for care, Warnke said. 
 
 Telephone messages left with Tull's husband and mother seeking comment were not immediately returned. ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video 
 
 MODESTO -- A kindergarten teacher missing from Modesto has been found alive, her father confirmed to FOX40. 
 
 Jamie Tull was found Friday morning by family and friends who went looking for her near where her car was found crashed in Merced County. She had been missing for nearly three weeks. 
 
 Tull was about half a mile east of the crash site in Le Grand. Her phone was found near a water trough where cattle drink. 
 
 "We saw her moving," Tull's step cousin Lynn Garber said. "And we said, 'It looks like she’s alive,' and she says, 'I’m alive.'" 
 
 Merced Sheriff Vern Warnke points to the spot where Jamie Tull was found this morning. pic.twitter.com/pB3jqYc6Pe — Kay Recede FOX40 (@KayRecede) August 4, 2017 
 
 Tull's father said she was sunburned and dehydrated, but alert enough to speak. She was flown to a hospital in Fresno. 
 
 The three people who found Tull said she could barely move because of her severe sunburns. She is said to have survived by drinking from that trough and eating insects. 
 
 Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said that when he arrived, Tull only wanted food and water. She said she was trying to get to Yosemite. 
 
 "I don’t think she had any insight or desire to be found. She was just trying to get to Yosemite," Warnke said. 
 
 Le Grand is more than 60 miles from Yosemite. 
 
 According to Tull's father, she has bipolar disorder. He says she has not taken her medication for about six months because a pastor and his wife told her that pills lead to demons. 
 
 A volunteer search crew said if Jamie hadn't been found Friday, search efforts would have been scaled back. ||||| Men who found missing Riverbank woman tell their story 
 
 Searchers who found missing Riverbank woman, Jamie Tull, 33, tell their story near a ranch on the outskirts of Planada, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 4, 2017. According to authorities, Jamie Tull had been missing for almost three weeks after crashing he
– A former kindergarten teacher last heard from more than two weeks ago has been found in Central California, and she told authorities she survived by eating two grasshoppers and a fly and drinking water from a dirty cattle trough, the AP reports. Rescuers who found Jamie Tull emaciated, dehydrated, and severely sunburned on Friday morning called it a "miracle" they spotted the 33-year-old lying in a field, too weak to walk. "That girl has a will to live," Robert Carpenter tells the Modesto Bee. "Anyone who can survive out here for 17 days is an amazing gal, to me." Friends and family had been searching for the Modesto woman in a desolate cattle ranching area near Le Grand since her car was found in a ditch; she called her husband while driving on July 17 and then reportedly crashed. Her car was found shortly after. Searchers were set to scale back the effort when they spotted her less than a mile from the crash site in tall grass. Lynn Garber was one of the searchers who found Tull, and says Tull told them she had been praying throughout her ordeal and was glad to be found. Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke tells things differently, saying Tull asked for food and water but then told searchers to leave her. "She hunkered down. She didn't want to be found," says Warnke. Tull's family tells Fox40 she suffers from bipolar disorder but stopped taking her medication at the urging of a pastor and his wife, who associated the pills with demons. Tull is recovering at a burn unit at a Fresno hospital. (Dramatic rescue saves stranded cable car passengers.)