A 32-year-old Wahiawa man who survived five days and four cold nights with almost no food and minimal clothing said Monday he began hallucinating and falling constantly, and almost didn’t make it.
"By Day 5 I had a 10 percent chance of living," Justin Clark said Monday after his release from the hospital. "I was so lucky they found me within two hours of giving up on me."
The Honolulu Fire Department was to end the search for Clark at 6 p.m. Saturday, but while doing an aerial search, a helicopter crew spotted Clark and rescued him at about 4 p.m.
Clark was ill-prepared for a long hike because he had planned to take a short 3-mile walk on a familiar trail near his home when he set out at 5 a.m. June 30.
Firefighters began searching after his mother called the Honolulu Fire Department at 12:38 p.m. Wednesday. Firefighters had initially searched the Schofield-Waikane Trail.
But Clark said he ended up near an old water tower and a World War II concrete dam close to the Koolau summit behind Mililani Mauka.
Clark said he got lost when he was just going to take a quick "peek" down the south fork of Kaukonahua Stream.
"Within 10 or 15 minutes I was completely lost," he said. He tried to find the trail by deliberately sliding down a hill of uluhe (fern).
"I kept sliding down uluhe until I hit a stream, hoping it would lead to an exit or entrance of a trail. Unfortunately, it led to the south fork of the Kaukonahua Stream, which is "very treacherous, unlike the north fork," he said.
After failing to find a trail, he climbed back up the 800-foot uluhe hill, then slipped, fell and slid about 700 feet down.
"Luckily, I didn’t hurt myself badly," he said. But he got "literally over 1,000 little tiny scratches all over my body" from the sharp uluhe.
He last texted his mother at about 4 p.m. Tuesday that he was lost and hurt. His cellphone died the first night he spent by the stream.
He drank stream water and ate a few fresh fern shoots and a few small berries.
"I lost my shirt, and my surf shorts got too wet, causing bad rashes on my knee, so I couldn’t wear those," he said. "I was hiking in the river for three days, so I had to take my shoes off and let them dry off. … For a lot of the hike, I was completely naked.
"Without fire and without clothes and food, I was freezing back there," he said. "After so many days, after sunburn and dehydration and being exposed to the elements, I did start to have a really rough time. I got into a state where I actually was hallucinating."
