Father reveals son's haunting last words before altitude sickness made him hallucinate and walk off 120-foot cliff
A 14-year-old California boy remains in a coma after telling his father he saw 'snowmen' and 'Kermit the frog' before walking straight off a 120-foot cliff during a hike on Mount Whitney earlier this month.
Ryan Wach, the boy's father, who witnessed the fall, said his teenage son was just out of reach when he fell off the side of the cliff and there was nothing he could do to prevent the fall.
Moments earlier, Zane Wach of Santa Clarita, had begun hallucinating and starting speaking nonsense.
'He told me he couldn't tell if he was dreaming or not.' said Ryan. 'And then he said he was going to the car. But the car was thousands of feet below us.'
The trouble began on June 10 as the pair summited the 14,505-foot peak of California's Mount Whitney, the tallest peak in the continental United States.
Zane suddenly starting feeling the affects of altitude sickness.
Despite briefly seeming to recover, Zane's mental state suddenly deteriorated, culminating in a series of alarming statements before he wandered off the trail and plummeted over the side of the steep granite cliff.
'It was in the direction of the ledge. He thought it was right there, like the hike was over. I wiped my eyes for a second, and when I looked up, he was already 10 feet away. I reached out - but I couldn't get to him. And then he was gone.'
The fall left Zane with a traumatic brain injury and happened as the pair had begun their descent via the Mount Whitney Trail, hours after completing the technically demanding Mountaineer's Route.
Aside from altitude sickness, Zane had been suffering from exhaustion and what doctors suspect was a dangerous combination of dehydration and sleep deprivation.
Earlier on the trail, Ryan said Zane began claiming they had already finished the hike 'multiple times,' and appeared unable to distinguish dreams from reality.
'He started to experience some hallucinations,' Ryan told SFGate. 'He said, like those snow patches down there, they look like snowmen. Or those green lakes in the distance, I see Kermit the Frog and his friends and a few other random things.'
He later refused to continue walking telling his father, 'This is not real.'
'I've never seen anything like it,' Ryan said. 'He wasn't making sudden movements, but it was like he was sleepwalking. I didn't trust what he might do.
'He told me he couldn't tell if he was dreaming,' Ryan explained. 'He'd shake his head and say, "This isn't real. I don't think this is really happening." Like he was stuck in the movie Inception or something.'
Ryan said Zane's awareness of the hallucinations initially gave him some comfort.
'He was aware of it, which of course worried me, but he was still able to explain what was happening,' Ryan said. 'I thought, OK, maybe it'll pass.'
But the clarity didn't last and suddenly Zane decided he simply wanted to stop.
'He's not a quitter. That's not him,' Ryan said. 'But then he just stopped. He said he didn't want to go on. It got worse - more frequent. He truly believed none of it was real.'
The teen, who is nearly 5'9' and in peak physical condition having competed in triathlons, swimming, and distance running.
As his father put it: 'He's in better shape than I am.'
Zane had no history of mental health issues and had successfully hiked with his father before, but the combination of high altitude and physical stress appears to have pushed him into a dangerous dissociative state.
The two reached Trail Camp, six miles from the base and rested for a while. Zane appeared to improve but then he began to unravel.
'He was worse than before,' Ryan told The Independent. 'He almost seemed like he was sleepwalking. He started dragging his feet and stopped in his tracks,' Ryan said. 'He didn't want to go on.'
Then came the surreal comments.
'He told me we'd already finished the hike multiple times over,' Ryan said. 'He was shaking his head, like he was in disbelief. Like he was in a dream he couldn't wake up from.
'He told me he was going to get dinner,' Ryan recalled. 'That's when I realized he didn't know where he was anymore.
Ryan initially thought both of them were going to continue the descent - until his son veered toward the drop.
'He made a couple of efforts to walk toward the edge. I didn't know what he was going to do. He's big - five-nine, almost 15. I couldn't physically control him,' Ryan went on.
Several hikers passed by during this time, including a woman named Ariana, a trained EMT, who stopped to help and assess the situation. She too, became concerned.
'Suddenly he was already 10 feet away, heading straight for the drop,' Ryan said. 'I lunged, but he was just out of reach and he'd stepped off the ledge.'
After the fall, Ryan scrambled down the jagged terrain to reach Zane's body, convinced his son had died on impact.
'I didn't see how there would be a way for him to survive it, so I screamed,' he said. 'I was yelling "No!" I thought he was gone.'
But when he reached Zane's body, miraculously there were still signs of life.
'I rolled him over and he grunted. He was still breathing.'
The EMT who had passed by the pair earlier rushed to help, coordinating a rescue operation while Ryan remained with his unconscious son for a further six hours until a rescue helicopter arrived.
Zane was flown first to Southern Inyo Hospital in Lone Pine and then on to Sunrise Children's Hospital in Las Vegas, the closest facility with a pediatric trauma unit, where he remains in a medically induced coma.
Miraculously, doctors say his only other injuries were a broken ankle, a fractured finger, and a fractured section of his pelvis.
'Doctors said it's miraculous,' Ryan said. 'It should have been so much worse.'
GoFundMe campaign for Zane's medical expenses has raised more than $21,000.
'He's improving,' Ryan said. 'His eyes opened yesterday. But he still has a long way to go.
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