Two little California girls who disappeared Friday and survived alone in the woods for almost two days opened up on what it was like being lost and how they survived.
“We just wanted a little more adventure but I said to go a little farther,” 5-year-old Caroline Carrico said, according to ABC7.
Caroline, and her big sister, Leia, 8, disappeared at around 5:30 p.m. on Friday, from their family’s Benbow home, off of the 3000 block of Twin Trees Road in northern California. The children reportedly wanted to go for a walk but their mother told them no. Thirty minutes later, the girls were gone.
Search crews found the little girls around 1.4 miles away from their family’s Benbow home on Sunday, in “rugged territory,” huddled together in a Huckleberry bush.
Leia explained that when it started drizzling while out in the woods, she tried to find shelter while guiding her sister to follow her.
“It was starting to drizzle so I knew we needed to find shelter fast,” Leia said. “And we had my sister’s rain jacket to keep us warm… We turned it sideways so each of us had an armhole that we stuck our arms into.”
Leia said as it became dark, her little sister began to cry. That’s when big sister said she took control and tried to keep the little girl calm. Leia told Caroline stories throughout the night while the little girl bawled, apparently wanting her parents and her home.
“My sister cried the whole night so I told her to think happy thoughts of our family and I kept watch for most of the night.”
Caroline added that she tried to think of going to the park with her parents.
While the girls hid in a bush, more than 250 search crews were looking everywhere for them. On Sunday, Delbert Chumley and Abram Hill from the Piercy Volunteer Fire Department found the girls huddled together.
“We both popped out of the brush and slid under and there were these purple rain boots and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh,'” Chumley explained.
Both girls had rubber boots on when they disappeared, and ate granola bars on their outing while tossing the wrappers on the ground. Following the trails of wrappers and boot prints helped ultimately find the girls, who were a bit dehydrated, but otherwise in good health.
The girls’ mother, Misty Carrico, said the children had previously participated in 4H wilderness survival classes for two years, according to CBS.
“They saved each other. I’m the proudest mom, I raised superheroes.”
[Feature Photo: Leia and Caroline Carrico/Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office]
