20yo woman joined major search for ‘missing’ tourist on Iceland trip – takes her hours to realize she is looking for herself

A tourist visiting Iceland ended up in a strange situation in August 2012 when she joined a search party looking for a missing person. Hours later, she found out that she was the one everyone was searching for.

The whole thing happened on a Saturday near Eldgja canyon in Iceland’s southern area with volcanoes. The woman was described as being of Asian background, around 160cm tall, and wearing dark clothes. She had gotten off her tour bus during a stop at the pretty location. She used the break to clean up and change her clothes before getting back on the bus.

But when she got back on the bus wearing different clothes, the other passengers and the driver did not know who she was. They thought she was a different person. As per The Independent, after waiting for about an hour, the bus driver got worried and told the police that a passenger was missing. This started a big search that went on for many hours into the early morning.

When you literally spend the weekend finding yourself

Search and rescue teams were sent to the area quickly to look for the missing tourist. The search had around 50 people walking and driving around the empty volcanic land. A coast guard helicopter was also ready to help with the search but got delayed because of fog in the area.

The woman joined the search too, not knowing at all that she was the person everyone was looking for. Reports say she did not think the description being shared about the missing tourist was about her. So she spent several hours looking for herself. While tourists have gotten into weird situations before, this mix-up is really one of a kind.

The search went on through Saturday night and only stopped at 3am on Sunday morning. The confusion finally ended when the woman realized that the description of the missing person was actually describing her. She told the bus driver right away, and he called the police to stop the search.

Sveinn Runarsson, the police chief running the rescue operation, said that the woman did nothing wrong. He told local news that the passengers on the bus just were not counted the right way. The police chief also said that the woman had no idea she was missing and did not think the description was about her.

This was not the first time something this weird happened in Iceland. A similar thing happened in 1954 when a big search was done for a young girl in a red coat who had been picking berries with a group. The search went on for hours until people found out that the girl had been helping look for herself. That confusion was also caused by a wrong description of her clothing.