A 72-year-old California man spent 19 days lost in the wilderness, subsisting on lizards, frogs and squirrels until his rescue on Saturday.
Despite snowfall and temperatures as low as 25 degrees, Gene Penaflor used his gun to hunt small game, made fires, crawled under large logs, and packed dry leaves and grass around himself, CNN reports.
“He’s good,” Penaflor’s son told CNN after his rescue. “He’s hanging in there. He looks like nothing changed except he grew a beard.”
Penaflor was hunting with a friend Sept. 25 in California’s Mendocino National Forest when they split up briefly to pursue a deer. He tripped and fell, hitting his head and knocking himself unconscious, and his hunting buddy never found him.
Search teams were also unsuccessful, and were held back for some time by storms. Another hunter heard Penaflor’s calls for help Saturday, almost three weeks later.
[CNN]