An 82-year-old Roanoke woman spent nearly five hours trapped in her car in Bedford County on Monday -- the car had driven down a steep, wooded embankment -- before being spotted by a passing motorist with a full bladder.

For hours, cars and trucks whizzed by the woods along Hardy Road where Lois Bradley's tilted 1985 Oldsmobile sat unseen in the underbrush. The car was finally spotted when a motorist stopped along the edge of Hardy Road to urinate, said Virginia State Trooper Andrew Dayes.

"I told her, the only reason you're alive today is because some guy decided to do something illegal and urinate on the side of the road," Dayes said.

Bradley, who uses a cane, was driving back to her home on Jamison Avenue Southeast about 11 a.m. when she suffered a leg cramp, Dayes said. The cramp caused her to veer across the road and 15 feet down an embankment, where her car came to a stop out of sight of passing motorists.

Bradley was unable to open her door, and even if she had managed to open it, the bank was too steep.

"I couldn't have climbed it," the octogenarian said Tuesday, adding that she still has a knot on her head and feels "a little sore. I have bad knees. And sitting all that time without moving ..."

Bradley said she didn't bother blowing her horn. She said she was trying to save battery power -- though she used her air conditioning occasionally -- in case she had to stay overnight. She kept her windows rolled up to keep the bugs out, so she couldn't hear any passing cars.

Dayes said it's unlikely the passing cars would have heard even if Bradley had blown her car's horn because most drivers have their air conditioning on.

Bradley didn't have a cellphone to call for help.

"I don't like 'em," Bradley said. "My son-in-law gave me one one time -- I just let the minutes run out."

Shortly before 4 p.m., a motorist from Roanoke came by. The man had stopped at a gas station in Vinton to use the restroom only to be told there was none "for civilians," Dayes said, so the man continued into Bedford County before stopping along Hardy Road.

"He said he saw the car and thought, 'that's odd,' then he saw a hand waving," Dayes said.

"I saw a man up the hill in my rearview mirror," Bradley recalled. "I stuck my hand out the window and waved at him. I probably scared him to death."

The local volunteer fire department came and pulled Bradley from the car and up the slope on a gurney. She refused to be taken to a hospital and was eventually picked up by her son-in-law.

As for the passing motorist, Dayes said he didn't get the man's name. "I didn't cite him for urinating in public," he said. "I told him he'd done his good deed for the day."