Hiker Found in "Miracle" Rescue

One wrong turn - that's all it took for a hiker to get lost for six agonizing days.

He had no food, no water and had literally just written his dying words, when a miracle happened.

CBS News correspondent Priya David Clemens reported on "The Early Show" Wednesday that Ed Rosenthal just planned to go on a short hike and, in his words, "go back and take a nap."

It was a three-mile walk that the 64-year old had done many times in Joshua Tree National Park. What could go wrong?

Rosenthal told CBS News, "I wasn't prepared. I had two huge bottles of water I left at the hotel."

But one disastrous wrong turn took him deeper and deeper into the canyons. The more he tried to find the trail, the farther away he got.

Rosenthal said, "I walked 15 miles."

Stuck in the searing California heat, he had flares, a walking stick and little else.

Rosenthal said, "I really wasn't sure I would survive."

So Rosenthal took out a pen, took off his hat and kept a diary.

Rosenthal, reading from his diary, said, "No water five days, got lost Friday, slept out Saturday."

Over six long days, Clemens said Rosenthal lost 20 pounds. His kidneys began to shut down.

Rosenthal said of his state, "Your mouth turns to, like, sand."

He prepared for the end and made notes for his wife and family.

Nancy Kaplan, Rosenthal's wife, said, "He wrote on his hat who he wanted as the pallbearers at his funeral."

Rosenthal's final entry read, "STILL HERE!"

On day six, a rescue helicopter spotted him just in time.

Bob Stine, of the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department, said, "We found him at the bottom of the river bed waving his walking stick."

Rosenthal said, "I probably had one day left."

Kaplan said, "I just couldn't stop saying 'my husband, my husband, they found my husband.'"

Rosenthal says it was something more.

"It was a miracle," he said. "It was definitely a miracle."