A 14-year-old hiker remains in a coma after a California mountain trek with his father went terribly wrong.
Zane Wach was hiking Mount Whitney on June 10 when he began experiencing altitude-induced hallucinations, according to SFGATE.
Not long after, he walked off a cliff, suffering a severe head injury and multiple broken bones.
Prior to the hike, his father — an experienced mountaineer and outdoorsman — wasn’t worried about his son, who also hiked and competed in distance running, swimming, and triathlons.
“He’s in better shape than I am,” Ryan Wach told SFGATE. “The idea was that this would be kind of like his introduction to mountaineering.”
The two had successfully summited the mountain and were on their way down when Wach realized something was wrong.
“He started to experience some hallucinations,” Wach said. “He knew he was hallucinating. He said he saw things like snowmen and Kermit the Frog.”
As they hiked further down, Zane started feeling better, but the hallucinations would later return.
“He was in an altered mental state, and I don’t know what caused it. We still don’t know,” Wach said.
At some point they had to stop.
“It was completely bizarre,” Wach said. “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 hikers were at about 10,000 feet when the hallucinations happened, according to KSNV-TV in Nevada.
Dr. Puja Vithalani, a physician with Kaiser Permanente, told the outlet that even experienced hikers aren’t immune to altitude-induced hallucinations, which can begin above 8,000 feet.
“You can definitely get confused, you can maybe be speaking and not make as much sense, your speech can be a little bit affected,” Vithalani said.
Realizing Zane’s condition, a nearby group of hikers called search and rescue.
Meanwhile, Zane’s condition worsened, as he began moving toward the ledge and saying he was going back to the car.
He did this a couple times, and each time his father managed to grab him — except once.
“I was kind of losing my mind, in a way, because I was so scared and frustrated,” he said. “I had to wipe away tears. I was holding my hands to my eyes, and he walked off again. 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.”
Zane fell down a steep granite slope, where his father later found him.
With the help of an EMT who happened to be there, Wach waited six hours with Zane before search and rescue could helicopter him to the nearest hospital, which was in Las Vegas.
Zane remains in a coma at Sunrise Children’s Hospital.
Wach is hopeful his son will recover.
“When we were on the mountain and I was holding him, I kept saying that I got you and I am not going anywhere, and so I will probably say I got you and I am still not going anywhere,” Wach told KSNV.
The Wach family later started a GoFundMe page.
“He is a straight-A student. He is involved with the church. He is just an all-around great kid. Could not even ask for a kid this good. I am lucky to be his father,” Wach told KSNV.
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