GLENOMA, Wash -- A mudslide nearly cost a Glenoma woman her life.

On Wednesday morning, Linda Mitchell lost her tavern, home and nearly her life as a mudslide enveloped her property, KIRO 7 reported.

Mitchell was trapped by water and mud, first inside her house and later in the bar, for three nightmarish hours.

She figures she owes her life to her ax-wielding son, who chopped down a fence to ease the pressure from the mud and water engulfing her house, and a friend who later used an excavator to divert water surrounding the bar.

Then there was her Lab, Shadow, who helped her make a treacherous trek from her home to the slightly higher ground of the bar.

"Shadow literally came back for me three times when I fell through the mud, snow and water, and I'm not real light," she said. "He'd stand there and let me pick myself back up with his body. He saved me."

Mitchell's land was among the hardest hit in Glenoma, which was slammed by mud, logs and water during this week's rainstorm that damaged Highway 12 through town and some properties.

Several hundred people live in the community strung out along the state highway, which winds through the Cowlitz River valley of Southwest Washington.