Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Found: Missing 13 y.o. Hiker in SeKi

This may be old news, but Sierra Wave provided a little more information about the hiker and the situation:

The 13-year-old son of a Mammoth Lakes Emergency Room doctor remained missing in the Sierra mountains at last word - the subject of a two-day search.

Last night, Mammoth Lakes friends of Dr. Rick Shedd prepared to pack up and go help look for his son, Austin Shedd. At last word, they were on stand-by. Dr. Shedd had reportedly hiked down to Independence from the Baxter Pass area Monday where other relatives awaited word.

According to friends of the doctor, he had stopped to make a sandwich for his son during their hike, and when he finished his son was gone. The doctor and a hiking partner searched for the boy. Dr. Shedd finally hiked down to the Owens Valley to get help. The hike itself involved high elevations in the backcountry above Big Pine and Independence.

Inyo Search and Rescue is not working the boy's disappearance at last report. The Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park was reportedly conducting the search.

I thought some follow-up would be interesting and instructive, too. I also can't remember another SAR story with absolutley no follow-up, no interview with the family or victim. Lots of things about this don't fit. The boy disappears in the time it takes to make a sandwich, out of earshot. Lost and alone overnight at elevation, gets back on trail and finds the trail crew, evac by chopper and not a single quote anywhere from the kid, the rescuers, family. Odd.

Austin Shedd's story:

Austin very tired and hungry was walking slow and told Rick (his dad )to go ahead and find a place to pull over and make him a sandwich. You can't just make a sandwich in the middle of the trail you need to find a rock or log or a place to sit down and spread out. It is unclear, but they think Austin might have passed Rick.

After 20 minutes or so Austin kept wondering where his dad was and tried to circle back to find him and of course was on the wrong trails. When lots of time passed and he knew he was lost he tried to find his camp and when he knew he was on the wrong trail he listened for the River and knew enough to start following the River so he would eventually pop out where people might be.

Having no food or water he drank from a clean part in the River. As night fell upon him he leaned against a tree with a rock by it and prayed. He was cold and a little wet tired and hungry. He told me he started thinking about his cat Kitty Ki and how he might not see her again.................then he told himself stop~~~~ that is just the devil trying to mess with me and he prayed some more. ( of course I said Kitty Ki what about mom and dad??????, he said you know what I mean that was just one thought about the cat and he blew it off, he had faith he was going to see mom and dad. He told himself the whole time thinking negative would not help him so he chose to stay positive and pray.

When morning light came he kept following the River and stumbled upon a tent. Knowing somebody would return to this tent he stayed put. Hours past and he was cold so he went in the tent and went to sleep. The trail head guys returned after searching to their camp and made some food they did not even know Austin was fast asleep in their tent for 45 minutes. Can you imagine their joy they are getting in the tent with their light and realize someone is in there !!!!!! Austin pops up and they say who are you? ....Austin and they just hugged him with joy.

Austin reported that he saw the helicopter a few times flying over him and he tried to throw stuff up in the air so they might see him but, with no luck. Thinking positive and the power of prayer help my son when he was alone and scared in the dark wilderness for over 30 hours.

Austin was about 5 hours and miles and miles away from the original spot of his camp and in such a remote area they had dropped off that search team by helicopter to search. Austin did get to see the helicopter, in fact he was flown out of the wilderness to the headquarters to tell his story and so that the AMAZING search and rescue team and everyone could learn from this experience.

God does answer prayer and walk with you when you need him the most. ~~Blessings to all, Jennifer Macdonald

Where you trying to cut and paste from another source?

There is a glitch in the program when quotes are involved. I have been re-typing the quote from the source for now.

PS I tried to access the link, and I could not see it, but, perhaps one must be a member of Facebook.

Here it is. Amazing story.

From FB:
[snip]

Thanks for doing the hard work of typing all that out, Steve, (and for fixing the mom's complete lack of formatting - we won't talk about punctuation & grammar).

Ken: Its not a media story; its the mother's story. Throws a different light on the incoherency, doesn't it?