A Manitoba couple in their 70s is thankful to be alive and back together after a harrowing night on a back road in rural Manitoba.

Thursday evening, David Raymond Cooper, 76, and his wife Tina, 78, were out for a drive when the couple noticed a picturesque road bearing a familiar familial name, St. Raymond Road.

But their adventure took a bad turn when their small pickup truck became trapped in mud.

“It was just watery and we got stuck really bad,” said Tina.

With no cellphone, David went walking to look for help, while Tina stayed in the truck.

David fell into a water-filled ditch and never returned. On Sunday, the details were still foggy.

“It was a very, very traumatic experience,” said David from his hospital room. “I jammed my eye in my glasses somehow and ended up with a black eye.”

As the hours passed, Tina grew more and more anxious. She prayed and had trouble sleeping.

Friday morning, with no sign of her husband, she too left the vehicle to look for help.

"I was just thinking, are we going to find him dead or alive? And I didn't want to find him dead. I wanted to find him alive, of course."

Tina managed to walk back the main highway where a stranger driving by picked her up. She called RCMP and with officers, found her husband cold, dehydrated and alive.

“I didn't want to leave my sweetheart behind,” David said.

RCMP said David spent about 12 hours outside. Tina said she didn’t think he would have survived outside much longer, because his jacket was wet and his temperature had dropped.

The couple is happy and thankful they found their back to each other.

The Coopers are looking forward to celebrating Tina's 79th birthday next week, and their 55th wedding anniversary in July.

They don’t plan to explore rural Manitoba again without a carrying a cellphone.

RCMP told CTV Winnipeg the Coopers are lucky. In addition to carrying a cellphone, officers said it's important to let people know where you're going and when you'll be back.

The towing company that retrieved the truck said the road required four-wheel drive to access, and getting out of the mud was not something a person could have done on their own.