According to his family, a California teenager who fell from a cliff on the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states while suffering from hallucinations connected to altitude has started a gradual recovery but is still in a medically induced coma.
Early this month, 14-year-old Zane Wach and his seasoned hiker father, Ryan, climbed Mt. Whitney in the Sierra Nevada via the eight-mile Mountaineer’s Route, which the Sierra Mountain Center describes as difficult and unmaintained. Ryan Wach told SFGate that Zane started having hallucinations of snowmen while on the trail and was in a changed frame of mind as the Wachs started to descend toward their car on a safer route.
In an interview with SFGate, Wach stated that it was really strange. He admitted to me that he was unable to determine whether he was dreaming or not, and he would shake his head in shock, as if to say, “This is not real.” It was as if he appeared in the film Inception.
According to the U.S. Forest Service, 30,000 hikers visit the peaks of Mount Whitney each year, and two of them are fatally injured on average. The mountain can only accommodate 100 climbers per day, and only 60 for challenging overnight climbs, during the busiest spring and summer months, from May 1 to November 1. Climbers who want to reach the summit must apply for a permit through a lottery system.
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Experienced hikers can reach the top of Mt. Whitney, which is more than 14,000 feet high, by following the Mountaineer’s Route. Although it is unknown if the Wachs made it to the top, the CDC states that anyone traveling to elevations of 8,000 feet or less is at risk for altitude sickness and its symptoms, which include disorientation and a sense of drunkenness and are typically linked to enlargement of the brain.
As they descended farther, Zane went into and out of madness, and Wach told the Independent that the two paused occasionally to rest as Zane tried to regain consciousness. Wach also mentioned that his son would sleepwalk away from his father and toward the trail’s borders.
After noticing Zane’s mental decline, another group of hikers—including an EMT—assessed his condition. Wach told the Independent that Zane swerved toward the edge of a steep slope and plummeted an estimated 120 feet after he momentarily removed his gaze from his son.
I yelled because I couldn’t see how he could go through it. The Independent was told by Wach, “I was screaming no.”
But when his father arrived, Zane was only partially aware, so the hikers in the area called rescue personnel, Wach said. According to officials, Zane’s father tried to keep him warm as the Inyo County Search and Rescue team searched for him for almost six hours.
According to the family’s GoFundMe, Zane was transported by air to the closest pediatric trauma hospital, Sunrise Children’s Hospital in Las Vegas. Although Zane was placed in a medically-induced coma due to head injuries, he was not seriously hurt. Wach informed SFGATE that his son had broken a portion of his pelvis and shattered his finger and ankle.
In a Facebook post shared by Zane’s grandmother, Wach stated that although Zane is still in a medically-induced coma, he made a significant progress toward his recovery when he started breathing on his own almost three weeks after his fall.
Doctors are now trying to wean Zane off of a lot of medicines, Wach noted.
According to Wach, he has been using heavy narcotics for a long time, and quitting them is really difficult and terrible. It’s awful for parents to witness. We wish him the least amount of pain possible during this ordeal.
