Jeff Hahn, Austin, Texas Marketing executive survives hike gone wrong at Big Bend Ranch State Park amid searing temperatures as he resorted to drinking from puddles and eating tadpoles after getting lost.
Never underestimate the power of miracles… A marketing executive negotiating sweltering temperatures of 107 F after getting lost during a recent hike in Texas was forced to drink from a puddle and eat tadpoles in a bid to survive his ordeal.
Jeff Hahn, 59, of Austin, and his 25-year-old daughter Harper Hahn planned to hike just a few miles inside Big Bend Ranch State Park in mid-June.
However, their plan went awry when they became lost and Jeff began to experience leg cramps as the blistering heat beat down on them, according to Texas Highways.
Father and daughter hike goes wrong
The pair was eight hours into the hike when they ran out of water and heat distress began to take effect on Jeff. He could only walk a short distance before needing to take a break.
‘You’re exposed, there’s no place to hide,’ the marketing exec told Texas Highway. ‘There’s not a blade of grass. There’s not trees.’
As his condition deteriorated, the father-daughter duo decided Harper would go on without him to find help, as they didn’t have cell reception.
She left her father at a rocky outcropping, but when she returned with park superintendent Nathanael Gold, her father was nowhere to be found.
Harper turned back toward her dad around 7:30 p.m. but during that time Jeff had continued to slowly move in the general direction he believed help would be in.
His legs burned, with the father saying the only way to ease the pain was to continue walking.
Never underestimate miracles (when you need them)
As the Hahn Marketing & Communications Principal (as per his Linkldn page) dragged himself through the state park, he reminded himself: ‘Clear head. Strong legs. Harper’s on the way.’
First miracle.
The dad made his way to a shack a few miles away from the outcropping, where he found two sealed bottles filled with one liter of water each on the windowsill.
Second miracle.
After leaving the shack, he continued through the park in the dark until his foot snagged on a rock. He fell, fracturing his wrist, and landing on a large rock, where he found a puddle of water.
Desperate for water in the extreme heat, he pulled out the straw attached to his water bottle and drank it, still lying facedown.
Jeff continued, eventually clambering up a hillside and into a small canyon, Texas Highways reported. He found a stream full of tadpoles and used his hat to scoop up the fish and eat them.
‘Will they find me?’
Third miracle.
Moments later, Jeff recalled hearing a plane in the distance and then a helicopter. A rescuer would then call out his name and they would take him back to his daughter after more than 24 hours.
Surviving heat and getting lost in the wilderness
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 soccer game,’ she told Texas Highways. ‘He just looked like my dad.’
Jeff suffered from rhabdomyolysis, where the muscles begin to break down. It can be triggered by extreme hiking conditions. He also suffered from acute renal failure and he was taken to the hospital, where he spent several days.
Since the ordeal, the executive has fully healed – minus having limited mobility in his fractured wrist.
Despite enduring a medical emergency, he plans on returning to the park and wants to replace the water bottles he drank in the shack.
Fourth miracle.
‘We’re going to turn ourselves into trail angels,’ he told the outlet.
