Missing Calif. hiker might have hurt ankle, father says
RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, Calif. The father of a young woman lost for a fifth day in a Southern California wilderness apparently couldn't keep up with her hiking companion as the two tried to make their way out of shoulder-high brush, possibly because of a twisted ankle.
Russ Jack tells the Los Angeles Times Thursday that 19-year-old Nicholas Cendoya shared some information with investigators despite being dehydrated and very disoriented after being rescued Wednesday night.
Searchers are hunting for 18-year-old Kyndall Jack, who's been missing in Cleveland National Forest since Sunday.
Russ Jack says Cendoya believed his friend had already been saved. Cendoya said he hadn't seen her for at least a day.
Rescuers spotted "a delirious" Cendoya after after crews received a tip from a hiker that a man was at the bottom of a steep ravine, reports CBS Los Angeles station KCBS-TV. He was barefoot and wearing shorts, the station says.
"He was extremely confused and disoriented," said Orange County Sheriff's Lt. Jason Park.
Sheriff's investigators planned to talk to him at length once he was recovering at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo. They hoped to get more direction on where to look for Jack, who was hiking with Cendoya Sunday when the pair made a 911 call from a dying cellphone and set off the search.
The hiker who came across Cendoya went for help and found a firefighting training crew not involved in the search that just happened to be nearby, Park said.
They found Cendoya about a half-mile south of where much of the search had focused. He was surrounded by so much vegetation that the helicopter rescue crew had trouble keeping track of him once they found him.
"When the rescuer was lowered he lost sight of him," said Division Chief Kris Concepcion of the Orange County Fire Authority. "That's how thick the brush was."
Cendoya was in stable condition, Mission Hospital's Dr. Matthew Kaplan told TV reporters.
"He's strong, he's young, he's a healthy young man, and he's pulling through," Kaplan said.
Several dozen searchers with help from helicopters had been combing the rugged hills of Trabuco Canyon in the national forest.
Two volunteers got lost themselves and had to be airlifted out Wednesday afternoon. They were searching the area because the Sunday 911 call was traced to a nearby cell tower, Orange County Fire Authority Capt. John Muir.
Muir said earlier that Cendoya and Jack's "probability for survival is good" with mild weather both day and night.
The two were believed to have gone off trail near Holy Jim Trail, a tree-lined dirt path along a creek that leads to a waterfall and is popular with day hikers.
In the 911 call, they said they were about a mile from Jack's car, which was parked at a trailhead, but rescuers expanded the search when they weren't found nearby. When Cendoya was found, he was about a half-mile from the car, authorities said.
Jack's mother drew a message on the car's dusty windshield that read: "Kyndall — we r looking wont stop love you mom," and signed it with a heart.
"When you're disoriented because you're out of breath and tired and you think you're one mile away, you could be potentially three or four miles away," Muir said Wednesday afternoon. "There's a lot of ground to cover."
The area is in a section of the national forest in the Santa Ana Mountains, which lie along the border of Orange and Riverside counties southeast of Los Angeles. The trail ranges in elevation from about 2,000 feet to about 4,000 feet.