Ryan Wach and his teenage son Zane, 14, were hiking Mount Whitney in the Sierra Nevada mountain range on June 10 when a tragedy struck, leaving the teen in a coma.
According to Ryan, his son was fully conditioned to summit Mount Whitney, even though it was Zane’s first time on that trail, as per SFGate.
Zane competed in distance running, swimming and triathlons and was equipped with hiking experience. The father and son planned to complete the track in a single pass.
However, as they climbed, Zane started experiencing altitude sickness, pushing them to take a less challenging seven-mile trail down.
But even then, his condition worsened and he started hallucinating.
“He started to experience some hallucinations,” Ryan told SFGate and added: “He knew he was hallucinating. He said he saw things like snowmen and Kermit the Frog.”
Soon after, Zane started questioning reality, telling his dad they had “already finished the hike multiple times over,” unsure if he was awake or dreaming.
“He told me he couldn’t tell if he was dreaming or not, and he would shake his head in disbelief, like, ‘This is not real.’ Like he was in the movie ‘Inception’ or something,” the father added.
“He was in an altered mental state, and I don’t know what caused it. We still don’t know,” Ryan said. “My best guess is a combination of exhaustion, sleep deprivation, probably some dehydration and lasting effects from the altitude sickness. But he essentially started to doubt reality.”
At one moment, Zane looked like he was sleepwalking. “He started dragging his feet and stopped in his tracks…He didn’t want to go on,” Ryan shared with the Independent.
Ryan tried keeping his son away from the dangerous ledge, but the teen insisted he was going to the “car” or trying to get “dinner.”
Struggling to keep Zane safe, Ryan became emotional, causing him to tear up and briefly lose his grasp.
“This time, I didn’t hear it until he was about at the edge, and when I went to reach for him, he was 10 feet away from me. I couldn’t get him, and he walked off the edge.”
The teen fell 120 feet before hitting the ground.
A rescue operation started right away. After six hours on the mountain, he was airlifted to the nearest pediatric trauma center, the Sunrise Children’s Hospital in Las Vegas.
Zane suffered trauma to his head and has been placed in an induced coma ever since. He didn’t suffer any other major injuries, which doctors describe as “fairly miraculous.”
The family is hoping for a full recovery.
They started a GoFundMe page to help them with the medical expenses.
According to Ryan, Zane was taken off ventilator and briefly opened his eyes on Wednesday but “still has a long way to go.”
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