In June 2025, an experienced hiker and athlete faced a harrowing ordeal on California‘s Mount Whitney. Zane Wach, a 14-year-old who competes in distance running, swimming, and triathlons, encountered severe altitude sickness while hiking with his father, Ryan Wach. The hike, meant to be an adventurous father-son outing, turned into a life-threatening crisis.
Hallucinations Amidst the Heights
As they ascended the mountain, Zane began to experience alarming symptoms. “He started to experience some hallucinations,” Ryan recounted to SFGATE. “He knew he was hallucinating. He said he saw things like snowmen and Kermit the Frog.” Struggling with these warped perceptions of reality, Zane found himself in an altered mental state, leaving Ryan deeply concerned.
A Dangerous Descent
Ryan, aware of his son’s precarious condition, managed to prevent Zane from wandering off the cliff on multiple occasions. “He was in an altered mental state, and I don’t know what caused it. We still don’t know,” Ryan remarked. His speculation pointed to a combination of exhaustion, sleep deprivation, dehydration, and lingering effects of altitude sickness. “He essentially started to doubt reality,” Ryan added.
The Fateful Fall
Tragically, during a third attempt to turn back, Ryan found himself too far from Zane, who then fell approximately 120 feet off the cliff. After a tense six-hour wait for an Inyo County Search & Rescue helicopter, Zane was airlifted to Southern Inyo Hospital in Lone Pine. There, he received stabilization before being transferred to a pediatric trauma center in Las Vegas.
A Hopeful Outlook
Zane’s condition necessitated a medically induced coma due to head trauma and physical injuries, including a broken finger, ankle, and fractured pelvis. However, there is a glimmer of hope as he begins to breathe on his own. “It’s going to be a survival story in the end,” Ryan expressed regarding his son’s ongoing struggle. “But right now we’re still in the middle of it.”
