A young girl was lost in the barren wilderness of Siberia during a blizzard—and survived.
Her secret? She was hugging a stray dog.
The 10-year-old girl survived for 18 hours overnight in freezing temperatures after going missing from her school in Uglegorsk, Russia. She clung to the animal for warmth before authorities and volunteers found her.
The story was first reported by the Russian newspapers Komsomolskaya Pravda and The Siberian Times.
The girl went missing on January 13 at around 1:00pm, with her mother phoning the police shortly after, according to the reports. The blizzard caused huge piles of snow that didn’t let the authorities and volunteers find the girl.
The girl was ultimately found because a person remembered seeing the girl playing with the stray dog near a local shelter, and was found under a low balcony near the shelter on top of a mattress.
“I was hugging a fluffy dog for warmth,” the little girl said.
“the fact that the girl remained alive in such weather really is a miracle,” said one of the volunteer searches, Anatoly Ivanov, to a local newspaper.
“We were looking all night, nothing was visible at all, our hands in mittens were so cold, it was difficult to straighten our fingers. By morning, we started to think she would not be found alive. How can you survive such a nightmare outside?”
The girl is doing fine, too—she was taken to a local hospital but went home the same day.
Man’s best friend, indeed.