A Texas marketing executive was forced to drink from a puddle and eat tadpoles to survive after getting lost in a state park in sweltering 107-degree temperatures.
Jeff Hahn, 59, of Austin, and his daughter Harper Hahn, 25, planned to hike a few miles inside Big Bend Ranch State Park in mid-June.
However, their plan backfired when they got lost and Jeff began experiencing leg cramps as the blatant heat hit them, according to Texas Highways.
The couple had been hiking for eight hours when they ran out of water and heat stress began to affect Jeff. He could only walk a short distance before needing to take a break.
“You’re exposed, there’s no place to hide,” Jeff told Texas Highway. “There is not a blade of grass. There’s no trees”.
As his condition deteriorated, the father-daughter duo decided that Harper would continue without him to seek help, as they had no cell reception.
He left his father on a rock outcropping, but when he returned with park superintendent Nathanael Gold, Jeff was nowhere to be found.
Harper turned to his father around 7:30 p.m., but during that time Jeff continued to move slowly in the general direction he believed help would be.
Jeff Hahn, 59, of Austin, and his daughter Harper Hahn, 25, were only planning to hike a few miles inside Big Bend Ranch State Park in mid-June. Jeff Hahn/Linkedin
His legs were burning and he told the local media that the only way to relieve the pain was to keep walking.
As Hahn’s Director of Marketing and Communications crawled through the state park, he reminded himself: “Clear head. Strong legs. Harper is on the way.
He headed to a hut a few kilometers from the outcrop, where he found two sealed bottles filled with a liter of water each on the windowsill.
They had been walking for eight hours when they ran out of water and soon the heat began to get to Jeff and he was only able to walk a short distance before having to stop. Harper Hahn
After leaving the hut, he continued through the park in the dark until his foot caught on a rock. She fell, broke her wrist and landed on a large rock, where she found a puddle of water.
As desperate as he was for a sip of water in the extreme heat, he pulled out the straw attached to his water bottle and drank it, still lying face down.
Jeff continued and eventually climbed a hillside and entered a small canyon, Texas Highways reported. He found a stream full of tadpoles and used his hat to collect the fish and eat them.
Harper turned to his father around 7:30 p.m., but during that time Jeff continued to move slowly in the general direction he believed help would be.TPWD
Moments later, he would hear a plane in the distance and then a helicopter. Then, a rescuer would call out his name and he would be taken back to his daughter after more than 24 hours.
Harper met her father at the trailhead, where he was sitting in a lawn chair, pale and dirty.
“My dad was just chilling like it was a football game,” he told Texas Highways. “He just looked like my dad.”
After 27 hours at the state park, rescuers found him near a pond and reunited him with his daughter. TPWD
Jeff suffered from rhabdomyolysis, where the muscles begin to fail. It can be triggered by extreme hiking conditions. He also suffered from acute kidney failure and was taken to the hospital, where he spent several days, the outlet reported.
Since the ordeal, the executive has fully healed, although he has limited mobility in his fractured wrist.
Despite suffering a medical emergency, he plans to return to the park and wants to replace the water bottles he drank at the hut.
“We are going to become angels of the track,” he told the outlet.
The Post has contacted Hahn for comment.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn