It started out as a regular Tuesday morning for two men heading out on a trail for work in the backcountry of Canada’s northeast British Columbia when they spotted another man trudging out of the wilderness.
They recognized him as the lost hiker Sam Benastick, who had been reported missing more than a month ago, on October 19, according to the Northern Rockies Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
He was reportedly found on a service road, supporting himself with two walking sticks and a cut-up sleeping bag wrapped around his legs for warmth.
Benastick told police he initially stayed in his car for a couple of days before walking to a creek near a mountain, where he camped for another 10 to 15 days.
He then moved down the valley and built a shelter in a dried-out creek bed, RCMP said. It was from there that Benastick made his way to where the two workers found him.
The men took Benastick to a local hospital, where police attended to him and confirmed his identity, said RCMP.
“Finding Sam alive is the absolute best outcome. After all the time he was missing, it was feared that this was would not be the outcome,” said Cpl Madonna Saunderson, BC RCMP Communications.
“I’ve got three kids and five grandkids. So I know what they were going through,” he said.
Reid kept in touch with the family who have been reunited at the hospital with Benastick. They told him their son nearly collapsed when he was found by the two workers on the road and was propping himself up on two sticks because he was “so weak.”
According to the RCMP multiple search and rescue teams had been looking for him along with the Canadian Rangers and “many local volunteers with extensive back country knowledge of the area.”
Benastick’s uncle, Al Benastick, described his nephew as an avid outdoorsman who was suffering from “frostbite and some smoke inhalation” in an interview with CBC News.
It was “kind of unbelievable” his nephew survived, he said. “Imagine being out there, being that cold, for that long.”