A 10-year-old girl was rescued after she got lost and was left alone during the night in the Cascade mountains, near Seattle, Washington, the BBC reports.
Shunghla Mashwani went missing on Sunday while visiting her family in the Cle Elum Valley.
She was found the next day after a massive search and rescue effort by crews from across Washington state.
Authorities say he slept between two trees to keep warm as the temperature was 3 degrees Celsius.
Shunghla, who arrived in the US from Afghanistan two years ago, was wearing only a T-shirt and a pair of jeans when she disappeared.
“The remarkably resilient little girl suffered only a few minor scratches,” authorities said.
The search began Sunday when the owner of a cabin in the area noticed a group of adults searching for the girl in an isolated area without cellphone service and offered to use his satellite phone to contact emergency services.
Mobilization of forces to search for the girl
More than 100 rescue team members, mostly volunteers, then began an all-night search involving two helicopters and advanced ground mapping technology.
“I thought I would find my father and I kept walking through the forest to find my father,” Shunghla said, explaining how he walked after getting lost.
In a Facebook post, authorities praised her for her impressive survival instincts.
“He said he knew it was a good thing to follow the river. She turned out to be an extraordinarily resourceful and resilient 10-year-old girl,” the authorities added.
The girl was found on Monday and taken back to her parents.
“It was there. This tough little girl had crawled through a mile and a half of very thick brush on steep slopes,” said an official, describing how grateful rescue teams were to find her unharmed.
The girl’s parents told officials they frequently spend time in the rural Cascade Mountains because it reminds them of their native Afghanistan.
Editor: Bianca Chirilă
