Hiker survives 5 days in lava field

10:08 AM CDT on Monday, July 25, 2005

Associated Press and Mike Zientek / 11 News

Click to watch Mike Zientek's 11 News report

WAIMEA, Hawaii -- A Texas man who spent five days lost in a lava field near the Big Island’s Kilauea volcano said Saturday that he survived by squeezing water from moss he found on trees sprinkled across an otherwise barren landscape.

AP

Gilbert Dewey Gaedcke spent five days lost in a lava field near volcano in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Gilbert Dewey Gaedcke III was rescued Friday afternoon after a helicopter spotted him stumbling across the rocky lava, trying to attract attention with a mirror from his camera.

He had been missing since Sunday night, when he decided to take a hike across the barren and desolate lava fields to get a closer look at the active volcano.

"It's the roughest thing I've ever seen. It's broken up lava, it's razor sharp, it collapses under your feet. It's just an amazing place," he said.

The 41-year-old experienced hiker from Austin, Texas, said he saw no water, but there were pockets of jungle-like vegetation sprinkled throughout the old lava flow.

Gaedcke said he would crawl beneath the vines and lick moisture off leaves. Then he found moss growing on the trees, and was able to squeeze enough water from it to drink.

“It was muddy, green, mossy water, but it worked,” he said. “If I hadn’t found that I’d be dead right now.”

Gaedcke said tour helicopters had flown overhead all week, but he was unable to attract attention because the cloud cover blocked the sun.

Then late Friday afternoon, the last one flew over. Aboard was 15-year-old Peter Frank, who spotted the odd glint in the late afternoon sunlight.

“It was the only thing like that out there,” said Frank, of Pasadena, Calif. “As we got closer we realized it was a man.”

It was Gaedcke—dehydrated, but otherwise OK after surviving five days in the heat, lost amid acres of blackened volcanic rock.

“I wound up on some of the most vicious terrain I’ve ever seen,” Gaedcke said Saturday as he rested at a friend’s home before flying home to Texas that night. “It’s all gray rock— terrible stuff—then vegetation like an oasis, then more gray rock.”

Gaedcke’s rented car had been found days earlier at the end of a road near an old lava flow bordering the east side of the 333,000-acre Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Police had few leads to follow. Fire crews and rangers from the adjacent Hawaii Volcanoes National Park searched for days—on foot and on horseback. Helicopters buzzed the area, but there was no sign of Gaedcke.

No sign, until Frank spotted what he thought was a toy pinwheel glinting in the sunlight.

When her son asked Blue Hawaiian Helicopters pilot Cliff Muzzi to get a closer look, Frank’s mother, Diann Kim, said Muzzi replied “’well, let’s go check it out.”’

“As we got closer you could see the man flashing a mirror and waving a dark orange fabric,” she said. “As he was coming down the path, clearly he couldn’t move that well.”

Muzzi circled for 20 minutes, Kim said, then radioed the authorities, giving them Gaedcke’s exact location.

Meanwhile, Kim’s daughter, Hannah, and a friend wrapped bottles of water in airsickness bags to drop to the distressed hiker.

“It was so amazing,” Kim said. “To see a person out there was like seeing a person on the face of the moon.

After returning his passengers to Hilo International Airport, Muzzi headed back for Gaedcke, then whisked him back to the airport, some 17 miles to the northeast. Medical crews were waiting to take him to Hilo Medical Center.

Gaedcke said he had seen the bright glow of the lava but then missed his car walking back in the dark. He hiked inland, expecting to intersect with the road, but by morning, he was lost.

His feet and hands were cut up from stumbling on the sharp lava rock, and he estimates he walked about 10 miles during the five days, spending most of that time searching for water.

Gaedcke stayed at the hospital for three hours Friday, and left with his sister, Tracy Smith, of Houston, who had flown in Thursday morning, and had made public appeals on television in the search for her brother, who is a computer consultant in Austin.

Gaedcke, who has two young daughters at home, said he had a lot of reasons to survive. He and his sisters said they thanked everyone involved in the search.

"I had to get home to see my little girls," he said. "I couldn't let them down."

Relief has spread over Gaedcke's family like a wave.

"We are so proud of him," said Tracy Smith, Gaedcke's sister. "They told us over and over again where he was wasn't survivable and told us we wouldn't even bring a body home."

“My feet feel like I had a 30-day adventure,” Gaedcke said. “And if it weren’t for my feet, I’d be dancing a jig right now.”

He has some ideas for the next time goes on an expedition. He'll take "a magnifying glass, a reflecting mirror and plenty of water," he says.