Women Stranded In Michigan Wilderness For Two Weeks Say They Could Hear Bears Scratching On Their Truck

The sisters survived on cookies before being rescued by helicopter.

ByABC News
May 3, 2015, 7:27 AM

— -- Two women stranded in the Michigan wilderness for two weeks say they could hear bears scratching on their car's door at night.

Leslie Roy, 52, and her sister Lee Marie Wright, 56, were on vacation in a remote part of Michigan when they became stranded in their SUV by heavy snow on April 11.

"The bears would show up about midnight," Roy told ABC News. "They would wake us up. We could hear them scratching on the truck."

The sisters were stranded for two weeks but they told ABC News they tried to call for help.

"We tried 911 and actually it just rang, it never made the connection," Wright said.

When calls failed, the sisters tried other methods, writing "help 9-1-1" on a T-shirt and hanging it on a nearby stop sign as a make-shift S-O-S signal.

The sisters said their car battery died four days after they became stranded -- leaving them without light, radio or heat.

"If we didn't have the food in the truck, it would have been a totally different story," Roy said.

According to police, the two women rationed food -- Girl Scout cookies and cheese puffs -- and melted snow for water as they tried to stay warm in their SUV.

After combing the woods for days, searchers spotted the women's SUV from a helicopter two weeks after they got stuck.

"We heard them hollering and that was excellent," Wright said.

"We're here, we're here!" Roy added.

The sisters were airlifted to a Helen Newberry Joy hospital, according to a press release.