"I dug small holes, collected muddy rainwater and drank it." A pensioner who wandered in the forest for two weeks told how she managed to survive
The story of Nina Kunitskaya mobilized hundreds of volunteers and rescuers in the Pinsk district, and as a result, she was found .
Nina Kunitskaya spent fourteen days in the forest thicket without food or clean water. She told "Pinsk-media" about her struggle for survival, the harsh forest days, and her rescue.
Her relatives brought the 67-year-old woman to the city for a doctor's examination.
Nina Stsiapanawna went berry picking on July 14. The next day, her family became worried and contacted rescuers, as the woman had not returned home.
The woman says she entered the forest near the village of Ploskin. Her family had only moved there from Lipniki at the end of December, so the woman was still unfamiliar with the area. That day, her son went towards the forest, and Nina Stsiapanawna followed him and got lost.
In the first days of her wandering, the pensioner met an unknown man in the forest. He showed her a direction and advised her to follow a ditch to a small bridge.
When asked by journalists why she did not ask for help or to be led out of the forest, Nina Stsiapanawna merely shrugged uncertainly.
The woman trusted the advice and continued, but there was no bridge there.
Fortunately, the rural resident did not encounter any wild animals on her path. The only source of food for fourteen days was ripe blueberries.
To get water, the woman cleared away moss and dry soil with her bare hands. She dug small holes, collected muddy rainwater, and drank it. At night, only a raincoat saved her from the piercing dampness.
"I cleared moss, but the water there was black. I cleared the water with my hands. And when it rained, water collected in the hole I made with film — that water was clean," Nina Stsiapanawna recalls.
While volunteers, rescuers, and police combed the forests, her relatives clung to every possibility of finding the woman.
Exhausted by the uncertainty, her loved ones even went to a fortune teller, but she gave a disturbing answer. Daughter-in-law Katsiaryna admits: no one believed such a scenario. The family refused to accept the terrible prediction and stubbornly continued the search.
And Nina Stsiapanawna continued her difficult journey through the forest. She admits: sometimes she was very scared, but she really wanted to go home.
And so on July 28, on the 14th day of her wanderings, with a faint glimmer of hope, the rural resident heard the sound of an engine.
She followed the sound and saw a mushroom picker on a motorcycle.
The man stopped and asked if she needed help. Only then did the exhausted woman quietly say that she had been wandering in the forest for two weeks.
Now Nina Stsiapanawna is resting at home, surrounded by loved ones. Grandchildren Maksim and Ihar literally do not leave their beloved grandmother's side, hugging her in turns.
To protect their loved one from new dangerous walks, the family plans to buy a smartwatch with a GPS tracker.