Ryan Wach still doesn’t fully understand what caused his 14-year-old son, Zane Wach, to walk off the edge of a 120-foot cliff—but he’s holding onto hope that one day, Zane will be able to tell the story himself.
The father and son were hiking California’s Mount Whitney on June 10 when Zane, an experienced athlete and hiker, began suffering from severe altitude sickness. Shortly after summiting the 14,505-foot peak via the Mountaineer’s Route, Zane started hallucinating. According to his father, the teen told him he was seeing things like snowmen and Kermit the Frog—and was aware he was hallucinating.
After descending back to Trail Camp, Zane initially seemed to improve. But around the 10,000-foot mark, things took a frightening turn.
“He was in an altered mental state, and I don’t know what caused it,” Ryan told SFGATE. “My best guess is exhaustion, sleep deprivation, dehydration, and lingering altitude effects. But he essentially started to doubt reality.”
Zane repeatedly thought they had already completed the hike, telling his father things like, “This isn’t real,” and “I’m going to the car” — even though they were still high on the trail. At one point, he insisted he was heading to dinner.
“It was like he was in the movie Inception,” Ryan said.
Then came every parent’s nightmare.
“I heard footsteps to my right,” Ryan recalled to NBC affiliate KSNV, “and Zane was walking off the ledge.”
Ryan managed to grab him the first time. But as Zane continued to slip in and out of reality, the unthinkable happened: Ryan turned away briefly to wipe tears from his eyes—and when he looked back, Zane had already walked off the cliff. He was about 10 feet away, just out of reach.
Zane fell roughly 120 feet down a steep granite slope.
Miraculously, nearby hikers—one of whom was an EMT—saw what happened and quickly called for help. But it took nearly six hours for a rescue helicopter to arrive. Zane was first flown to Southern Inyo Hospital in Lone Pine, then transferred to Sunrise Children’s Hospital in Las Vegas, the nearest pediatric trauma center nearly 230 miles away.
Despite the terrifying fall, doctors say it’s a miracle Zane survived at all. He suffered head trauma, a fractured pelvis, a broken ankle, and a broken finger. He was placed in a medically induced coma to aid in his recovery.
As of June 26, there’s a major sign of progress: Zane has been taken off the ventilator and is now breathing on his own.
“This was a giant milestone,” Ryan wrote in a Facebook update. “It opens the door to many new steps forward.”
Zane is now going through a difficult withdrawal process from hospital sedatives. His father described it as “extremely hard and painful” to witness.
“As parents, it’s terrible to watch,” Ryan added. “We hope he gets through this with the least possible suffering.”
But he has faith in his son’s strength.
“He’s a straight-A student. He’s involved in church. He runs, swims, does triathlons—just an all-around great kid,” Ryan said. “I’m lucky to be his father.”
The family is still in the middle of this harrowing journey, but Ryan believes one day, this will be a powerful story of survival.
