DENVER: An autistic man lived on frogs and roots as he wandered for weeks in the remote Escalante Desert of southern Utah until being rescued, emaciated but alive.
William Martin LaFever, 28, told rescuers that in addition to the bits of food he scavenged, including a few frogs he caught, he drank water from the Escalante River while attempting to walk from Boulder, Utah, to Page, Arizona, a distance of approximately 145 km more by the route he appeared to be taking.
The Garfield County Sheriff’s Department estimated he had traveled about 65 km over at least three weeks before he was found Thursday.
“It is some of the most rugged, unforgiving terrain you will find anywhere on Earth, jagged cliffs, stone ledges, sandstone, sagebrush, juniper,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Becki Bronson said in a telephone interview.
“Where William was hiking, there just isn’t anyone out there,” she said. “There are no people. There are no towns.”
The sheriff’s department said it was remarkable that searchers aboard a helicopter were able to find LaFever at all, much less alive.
Deputy Ray Gardner, who had recently completed training in search and rescue operations for people with autism and was aboard the helicopter, said LaFever would not have survived another 24 hours.
The helicopter took LaFever to a local hospital. The hospital said it could not release any information on his condition.
LaFever was trying to get to Page because his father, John LaFever told him he would wire money to him in there, the sheriff’s department said in a written release.
Autistic man survives ordeal in US desert
