SEATTLE (AP) – Two Forest Service workers who were believed killed in a fiery plane crash huddled together to stay warm in the freezing temperatures of the Montana wilderness, and one was in such excruciating pain that he had trouble bending over to get water from a stream, a doctor said Thursday.

New details of the workers’ miraculous survival emerged Thursday as one of their doctors held a news conference to discuss their recovery, and their families described the shock of learning the news just as they were making funeral arrangements.

“We were putting together his obituary,” said Matthew Ramige’s mother, Wendy Becker. “We were consoling each other and the Forest Service rushed in and told us we had to get to the hospital because he walked out. We were in disbelief.”

Ramige, 29, and Jodie Hogg, 23, walked away from the Monday crash in northwest Montana and emerged from the wilderness on a highway Wednesday afternoon, a day after both the Flathead County sheriff and the U.S. Forest Service had announced their deaths. Three others died in the crash.

Hogg was in stable condition Thursday at Kalispell Regional Medical Center in Montana. Ramige was in serious condition at a Seattle hospital with a spinal fracture and burns over 20 percent of his body on his hands, face and chest. But his doctor said he should fully recover and be back at work by next spring.

Dr. David Heimbach said the pair endured temperatures that fell to 20 degrees by huddling together to stay warm. They remained by the plane for a day and a half, hoping someone would come to rescue them, but decided to walk out when no one arrived, he said.

Ramige, who will be at Harborview Medical Center for about a month, was in intense pain during his trek, Heimbach said.

“His biggest trouble was trying to bend over to get some water out of the streams,” he said.

The crash occurred near the southern edge of Glacier National Park. The workers intended to conduct an annual vegetation inventory and repair telecommunication facilities, but crashed in stormy weather about 15 minutes into the flight.

“It’s just an unbelievable miracle. You look at that crash site, that wreckage, you’d never believe anyone could have survived,” said Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont.

Dupont said the aircraft went from more than 100 mph to zero in less than 40 feet.

“Who can survive that?” Dupont asked. A fire “literally melted everything.”

Heimbach did not discuss how the pair survived the wreck itself, and Becker said she had not asked her son about the crash because she thought it would be too traumatic.

Undersheriff Chuck Curry, who heads the search-and-rescue team, said he met with family members Wednesday evening who were upset about the premature declaration that all five people aboard had died.

Curry said he looked around the crash site for signs that anyone might have survived.

“There were no footprints leaving the site, no piled rocks, no written message – nothing indicating anyone had survived or left the area,” he said. “I specifically searched for those kinds of signs.”

Ramige’s grandmother, Clara Becker, spent the past two days making funeral arrangements for Ramige in Pittsburgh, where he grew up, when she got the call from her daughter that Ramige survived.

“You almost wanted to say, is this a cruel hoax? Are you kidding?,” Becker said. “It’s so unbelievable.”

Becker immediately called the funeral director, pastor and local newspaper, where the family had planned to place an obituary, to tell them about the good news.

“You can’t believe the elation,” said Jim Hogg, Jodee’s father.

Ramige graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in forestry, and was an outdoors lover who enjoyed golfing, skiing and hiking. His grandmother said Ramige possessed natural survival instinct, which may have helped him walk away from the wreck.

Jim Long, 60, was piloting the plane. Also on board was Ken Good, 58, an employee of the Flathead National Forest and Davita Bryant, 32, another Forest Service employee.

AP-ES-09-23-04 1915EDT