A 4-year-old girl who was lost in the Alabama wilderness for nearly two days was found safely on Friday. The girl, Evelyn “Vadie” Sides, was at the center of an exhaustive search before she was finally located. “We took a walk but then I got too fast and got running and got lost and then I started calling for nanny but nanny was too far,” Sides said in a video that was posted by her mother on Saturday. “I slided, slided down a waterfall. I was brave not to go in,” she continued. She said she and her dog, named Lucy, were separated but eventually found each other: “I found her because I was going the right direction, because I could smell.”

“We needed this badly,’’ said Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones. “This was really good, solid, positive news in a time when I think people need it the most, with all the medical concerns going on.” Vadie disappeared on Wednesday while she was walking her dog with her nanny—who is in her 70s—in the town of Loachapoka. The sheriff said the search involved “dog teams from all over the state, aerial assets, horseback, K9 and dive teams.” Jones said Vadie was found less than a mile away from where she vanished “in good spirits” and sitting alongside her dog on the ground.