Officials said that a 16-year-old woman who went missing in the Canadian wilderness after becoming separated from her hiking group was recovered safe after a frantic 54-hour search.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said on Friday that Esther Wang had been discovered in Golden Ears Park in British Columbia.
“She is healthy, she is happy and she is with family,” RCMP Superintendent Wendy Mehat said in a statement
Around 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Wang became separated from her trekking group on the East Canyon trail, according to authorities. Their leader spoke with park staff, who then alerted RCMP when the group’s leader failed to locate her on their own.
Over the course of the two days that Wang was missing, sixteen teams were dispatched in a thorough search for her.
Wang was located at 9:30 p.m. on Thursday after returning to the same trail where she had been disoriented.
She was examined by a medical personnel on the scene, and the same evening, the RCMP reported, she was released to her family.
After taking a false path while descended the mountain, Wang became lost. Staff Sgt. Keith Schendel told City News that she eventually found a place to rest and made her way back up the mountain off-trail.
She camped on the mountain for two nights with food and water in her supplies before returning to the path by way of a watercourse.
She had no serious injuries, Schendel added.
“She’s fine, just extremely fatigued and sore, bitten by mosquitoes. So she’s going to be taking some time to rest and then we’ll figure out in more detail exactly where the wrong turns were taken and all that kind of stuff.”
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