Stranded for 10 days in her car, in the snow, Arizona State University student Lauren Elizabeth Weinberg survived on two candy bars and melted snow.
Weinberg left her mother’s home in south Phoenix on Dec. 11 and got stuck in the snow a day later, MSNBC reported. She was driving around with no specific destination when she drove off of a paved road onto a dirt road. When Weinberg stopped her car at a fence line and attempted to move a gate she realized it was stuck in the snow, along with her car.
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She was found by two US Forest Service employees on snowmobiles who were checking if the gates on forest roads were closed. Weinberg was then taken to Flagstaff Medical Center and was released on Thursday, ABC News reported. Coconino County sheriff's spokesman Gerry Blair said the employees described her condition as “coherent and lucid but very hungry, thirsty, and cold.”
"I am so thankful to be alive and warm," Weinberg, 23, said through a spokeswoman at the Flagstaff Medical Center, MSNBC reported. "Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers, because they worked. There were times I was afraid but mostly I had faith I would be found."
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Weather forecasters and authorities said her survival was remarkable since she was stuck in more than two feet of snow and temperatures dipped to near zero some of the nights, the Associated Press reported. Weinberg did have a cell phone but the battery was dead.
The 23-year-old had just two candy bars with her and would put snow inside of a water bottle and place it atop her car so it would melt, MSNBC reported.