A hiker from California who fell about 1,000 feet to the bottom of a mountain down a trail in Hawaii called his rescue “a miracle” after he survived three days before being found.
“I never expected a day of hiking like this to go the way it did,” Ian Snyder said at a news conference Tuesday where he thanked rescuers for saving his life.
Snyder, 34, was hiking alone on December 4 when he fell from the Koʻolau Summit Trail near the Pali Notches Trail, according to the Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii.
Honolulu first responders located him on December 7 near the bottom of a waterfall.
Snyder said on the day he went missing, the trail’s peak was steep and the hike became more treacherous as he continued. “I was in good shape and able to navigate things well,” he said at the news conference.
“I looked down at Pali Highway and went, ‘Man, that’s a long way below me and I need to get down there,’ that was my plan,” the hiker said.
Snyder, a father to two sons and a daughter, said he doesn’t remember when he toppled down the trail.
“Once I came to, I had no idea what had happened, how long it had been,” Snyder said. “I had been out clearly, I can’t even remember if it was daytime or nighttime the first time I came to.”
He recalled being chilly when he woke up, and being located near a stream, he said.
Snyder, with a broken arm, said he dragged himself along to move closer to the stream and sought shelter from the wind between two rocks. He kept himself hydrated with stream water over the three days he was lost, he said.
As he hunkered down and time passed, Snyder said he made his peace with God.
“I wanted to live, so I wasn’t giving up the will to live,” he said.
The Honolulu Fire Department received a call on December 7 from the Honolulu Police Department to assist with a case of a missing person, Honolulu fire captain Adrian Carvalho said on Tuesday.
Using the last-known geolocation of Snyder’s phone, Carvalho said officials determined his phone was somewhere near the Koʻolau Summit Trail near the Pali Notches Trail.
“To get that information was very critical,” Carvalho said.
On the day of his rescue, Snyder said he woke up and heard aircraft “going very low” nearby.
“‘That’s very close, like they must be looking for me,’” Snyder said.
Rescue personnel flying in the area spotted the missing hiker near the bottom of a waterfall before airlifting him to safety, according to Carvalho.
“To our disbelief, he was waving his hands to get our attention,” the fire captain said.
In addition to his injured arm, rescuers said they found Snyder with a swollen right eye, trauma to his chest and puncture wounds on his legs.
“My hope is in a few weeks, I’ll be back to mostly normal,” Snyder said.