After their 14-year-old son began experiencing hallucinations while hiking and fell off a cliff, a family is collecting money for him.
On June 10, Zane Wach began exhibiting symptoms of altitude sickness while hiking Mount Whitney, California, with his father, Ryan.
When Zane began having hallucinations, SFGate claims that the father and son had made it to the top of the mountain but had to go many kilometres down to Ryan’s car.
According to his father, Zane’saw things like snowmen and Kermit the Frog’, but as they descended the mountain, the 14-year-old began to feel ‘considerably better’.
However, about an hour later, Zane started seeing things again and his dad told SFGate what he could see from his son, explaining: “He was in an altered mental state, and I don’t know what caused it. We still don’t know.”
“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.”
They had to halt their descent of the mountain because Zane believed they had already descended again. Ryan revealed that his kid had informed him he “couldn’t tell if he was dreaming or not” and would repeatedly say, “this is not real.”
Concerned about the adolescent, another group of hikers called search and rescue. Zane continued to move in the direction of a cliff with a precipitous drop off its edge.
The youngster stated it was the way to the car when Ryan stopped his son from going over, and when the father stopped his son from going over again, the child claimed he had only been going to get dinner.
This time, the guy ‘couldn’t get to him’ and noticed that his son had ‘walked off the edge.’ He claimed to be’scared and irritated’ and was wiping away tears when his son walked for the edge once more.
According to him, his son fell around 120 feet, and search and rescue was notified by hikers in the area.
About six hours passed before a rescue chopper could reach the teen and transport him to the hospital, where he was put into a medically-induced coma.
It was ‘quite miraculous’ that Zane did not sustain further injuries after he sustained severe head trauma, shattered his ankle, a finger, and a portion of his pelvis.
To assist the Wach family in covering the cost of their son’s medical care, a GoFundMe has been established for the 14-year-old, which you may contribute to here.
His family is praying he recovers completely.