22-Month-Old Girl Survives Alone In Forest For 4 Days Without Food Or Water

A toddler in Russia managed to survive in the woods for four days without food or water before being found alive, covered in insect bites.

The girl, identified as 22-month-old Lyuda Kuzina, was playing with her 4-year-old sister near her home in the Smolensk region west of Moscow on Aug. 17 when she wandered off into a nearby forest as her mother visited a neighbor, BBC reported.

This prompted a search operation involving over 400 people. Four days after she went missing, a few people, who had paused for a rest around 2.5 miles from the home, heard her squeak and found her in the woods.

Her mother told the local media the girl had no food or water and was covered in insect bites when she was found.

"The volunteers told me they hadn't been far away from the spot on the first day. It was only on the fourth day when they heard a 'squeak' that they found her in some branches under a tree," her mother Antonina Kuzina said, BBC reported.

One of the rescuers told local daily the Moscow Times, "One of the groups stopped for a rest… and suddenly heard a quiet squeak. They called again and heard another squeak. Lyuda was found in a windbreak where she strayed after several days wandering in the forest. The girl was weakened, bitten by insects, but most importantly alive! She immediately stretched out her thin arms to cling tightly to her rescuers… Everything is finally over."

The girl has now promised her mother she will never disappear again.

"She's quite adamant she'll never run away from Mum again. Although quite how long she'll remember that promise, I have no idea. But at least she says so," her mother said.

The toddler is now being looked after at a local hospital and will soon be discharged.

In a similar incident in 2016, Tserin Dopchut, a 3-year-old boy, survived for 72 hours in a Siberian forest home to wolves and bears.