Santa Fe, New Mexico A hiker who was stranded in a forest near Santa Fe for 14 days was rescued Sunday thanks to the persistence of another hiker and local rescue teams, CBS Albuquerque branch KRQE-TV reports. John Utsey told the station that he and his two children were on a trail in the Santa Fe National Forest on Saturday when the walker heard them and started yelling. That would start a saga that lasted the next day.
Twenty minutes of kicking back and forth and scrambling 600 feet off the track into a steep hill led the family to the man, who was in poor shape. He told her he had been there two weeks.
“He was lying next to a creek. His legs did not – he could not stand. He could not move. He was desperate. That he did not make much sense,” Utsey continued. “His lips were all cut off until they bled. His tongue was swollen. He was super shiny and skinny. I was like, ‘this man really needs help.'”
Utsey said he and his children gave the man all their food and water before walking the remaining three miles to the trailhead so they could call 911.
Santa Fe firefighters arrived within the hour. The crew had the exact GPS location of the man, who Utsey said he gave them to, but they could not find him and after eight hours the search ended.
“It was a little tricky to call off the search and rescue efforts,” said Captain Nathan Garcia of the Santa Fe Fire Department.
The news made Utsey feel bad.
“So, I was lying there, ‘this man is still in the mountains.’ So, at 9 o’clock Sunday morning, I put my hiking boots back on and stepped back and he was exactly where I left him,” Utsey said.
Utsey called 911 again, just before noon. This time he had to wait several hours for crew to arrive, which he says they did at 4 p.m. Utsey then led two separate groups of rescuers to the man.
KRQE-TV
“Still, we found someone who had been out for so long,” Garcia said, “It’s hard to say. The human body can do great things sometimes, but I do not think he had much left in him. He seemed friendly from the end when we actually met him. “
Garcia says the man hurt his back while walking and could not even get up. The man, who is older than 50, went without food for more than a week. He relied on his filter water bottle for survival.
“He would wind his way to the stream. He would drink water from the stream and then wind his way away from the stream at nightfall because of the colder temperatures that the stream brought,” Garcia said.
The walker’s body temperature was so low when crews found him that they made a fire to warm him up. They then grabbed him in blankets and carried him out.
“He had the will to survive for sure,” Garcia said.
Firefighters say the man was a seasoned walker; he was recovered in a Santa Fe hospital.
Santa Fe Fire Department Captain Nathan Garcia said the lost walker had chronic back pain and it hurt again while walking, making him unable to stand or walk.
His name was not released. He was recovering in a hospital.
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