A man in his 30s who went missing after going out naked to do a light hike has become a hot topic after being rescued from the mountains after 10 days.
According to the California State Fire Department on the 23rd, its rescue team found and rescued Lucas McLeish (34), a man who had been reported missing deep in the mountains of Big Basin Redwoods State Park, south of San Francisco, on the evening of the 20th.
In the past few days, there have been several reports of someone in the area calling for help, but no one could be found. A drone flown by the local sheriff’s office helped locate McLeish, the fire department said. In an interview with local broadcaster KSBW and the New York Times (NYT), MacLeish said that he stopped by a friend’s house near Big Basin Redwoods State Park on the morning of the 11th and went hiking alone after hearing that there was a wonderful granite wall on this mountain. He thought he could make the trip in about three hours and took nothing with him except a flashlight and folding scissors. However, after entering the mountain, he encountered a large area devastated by a forest fire and got lost there.
He said, “It looked completely different from other mountainous terrain,” and “I didn’t expect that if it was completely burned down by a fire, it would turn into a desert, and I wouldn’t be able to find my way around it.” Deep in the mountains of the United States, there are many cases where cell phone signals are not available at all. He said that while wandering in the mountains for several days, he survived by drinking waterfall and valley water and eating wild berries.
His family recognized that there was a problem when he was not seen and could not be contacted at a gathering on the 16th, Father’s Day, and reported him missing. As a mountaineering enthusiast, he said he did not feel much fear until five days after the shipwreck but began to feel serious as the difficulty of survival increased, such as hypothermia worsening and injuries from slipping from rocks.
In North America, there was an encounter with a puma, also known as a ‘mountain lion’, and a narrow escape. On the eighth day after the shipwreck, he began screaming for help, hoping that someone would hear his voice, and finally, on the tenth day, he was able to find a drone floating in the sky.
“I hoped this wasn’t a mirage,” he recalled of that moment. He said, “I went on a water diet for 10 days in the mountains,” and “I lost 30 pounds (13.6 kg) in 10 days.” He then explained, “If you drink 1.5 gallons (5.7 liters) of water every day, you won’t need food until all the carbohydrates (in your body) are used up.”