An Australian student who vanished while hiking last month was found alive after spending nearly two weeks in the wilderness, where he managed to sustain himself on berries, along with two muesli bars he discovered.
Hadi Nazari, 23, went missing on December 26th after separating from his two friends in the wilderness of Kosciuszko National Park in southeastern Australia’s New South Wales.
A hiker group discovered him on Wednesday, approximately six miles away from a base camp that was set up as part of a large-scale search effort involving numerous individuals.
“This is an incredible outcome, after what has honestly been a long time, he has finally been located,” said New South Wales Police Inspector Josh Broadfoot.
Hazari drank creek water and lived off foraged food from the surrounding mountains, Broadfoot told journalists in another interview. This consisted of berries and “a couple of muesli bars that he found in a hut.”
Rescuer Hazari was described as “in such good spirits” and “in such great condition,” and was being evaluated by paramedics at the search base camp, where cheers erupted and his tearful family was seen hugging him.
According to the police, Hazari and his two friends, aged 23 and 24, had planned to meet up at a campground after they separated. However, when Hazari failed to show up, his friends started looking for him.
Over 300 rescuers and volunteers, supported by multiple agencies, began a large-scale search operation in the mountains to track Hazari’s location.
There was a surge in hope that Hazari was still alive when several items of his believed to have been lost were found near a river on Dec. 31, a day before New Year’s Day, and later on Jan. 5, some potentially useful items such as a lighter, a campfire, a camera, and a camera bag were discovered.
On Wednesday, a group of hikers who were near the search area heard Hazari crying out for assistance.
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Dart stated that he had come across a missing person alert involving Hazari, but his group wasn’t actively searching for Hazari at that time.
After discovering him almost two weeks after he had gone missing, Hazari appeared disoriented, unable to gauge the elapsed period, mistakenly thinking it had been only seven days.
“His instincts for survival were truly impressive,” Dart said.
This text was first published in the above article.
